Rise of the Third Kingdom
by A Mountain Sage
Summary: A thousand years ago, mankind rose from the ashes of extinction and the Four Horsemen cast down the Dark Prince and the corrupted Charred Council. Now, the seals of the new End War are hidden in the souls of two young girls fleeing destruction. The Horsemen have no choice but to defend them until the hour is right... Even if that means taking human forms. Massive Multi-Crossover
1. An Origin Story

**~Chapter One: An Origin Story~**

* * *

This universe is dualistic at its heart, the twin Trees of Life and Death forever intertwined. Within each tree there are countless worlds: for every shining world of the angels, a shadowed realm of the demons; for a life filled world of the Makers, a graveyard world in the Abyss. It is the most natural occurrence imaginable for Light and Darkness to fight one another, but neither must triumph if there is to be balance.

For balance to be, it must have a champion. Two Kingdoms cannot suffice, a Third must rise. So the Third Kingdom rose from the ashes of hellfire and now the last war approaches one final time, heralded by violence and blood. It is night now, the light of the stars and moon blotted out by the pillaging fires and smoke consuming the living and the dead. Cries of terror mingle with wild war cries and gleeful howls over the roar of the flames. This is where we set our stage, the destruction of demon hunting clans that have stood for millennia...

_**-We find ourselves entangled in cruel fate-  
**_  
Yomi did not feel the heat of the fires on her skin, nor the layer of sweat and grime making her clothes stick to her eight year old body uncomfortably. She hardly noticed the flashes of steel as the swordsmen of the clans ran in the opposite direction, nor the pools of red forming around forms both far too still and those still writhing.

"Nē-chan," Yomi was all too aware of the painful death grip she had on the younger girl's arm, and her whimper drove a painful spike into her heart. "Yomi-nēchan! You're hurting me!" That pain was the least of their worries.

"Run, Kagura-chan!" She shouted, but it took all the strength she could muster to keep her voice from breaking. They had to get to the shrine, that was all she could think about, the place her father had told her to take refuge when danger threatened their village. Even as her feet pounded up the stone steps, the sounds of battle seemed to draw closer. Kagura hardly ran up the stairs so much as was dragged. When Yomi reached the doors of the shrine she threw them open and pulled her friend inside. As she turned to shut them inside, Yomi caught a glimpse of the very thing she had been trying so hard not to see.

All of it was burning. Her home, Kagura's home, every building she could see was up in flames. Bodies littered the streets; others were cut down as she watched. In an instant her eyes caught on her father, his armor glistening with the fire's glow. His sword flowed through one mercenary to another with sprays of blood and the ring of steel. A man attired in the armor of a samurai stepped forward and met his blade. Yomi could see her father's mouth moving but the din of battle drowned all sound. Then her father became stiff, and it took a moment for her to see the red steel protruding from his back.

She screamed. The samurai's gaze turned to her and she saw his face, dark hair tied back and a bearded jaw. He wore no smile, but a perverse thrill danced in his eyes. Yomi slammed the door shut with all the strength she could muster. Then it seemed she had no strength at all and she sunk to the floor, weakly crawling to Kagura's silently weeping form.

The writhing shock subsided and a detached cold numb sense of terror crept through her, the terror of one's world falling apart. Her father was one of the greatest swordsmen in the village, she had only seen him beaten once and that was against Tsuchimiya-sama. She had been horrified that day, but that night he had comforted her and explained that nobody was invincible, that him and Tsuchimiya-sama would work together to keep each other safe as they fulfilled their sacred duty.

Her father would not comfort her tonight, and where was Kagura's father? Why had he not been there to protect her father? 'Because he's dead too.' It took her a moment to realize that she was crying.

For a moment she was sorely tempted to let go, to let shaking sobs and hoarse wails drown out the sounds of fire and battle. Then she saw Kagura, her surrogate sister's head cradled in her own arms, eyes screwed shut and mouth set firm, desperate to contain the horror she couldn't possibly understand. Yomi stared for a moment, and then picked up her eyes with a new resolve. They had to get away. She had to get Kagura away. It was all that mattered now. The girl picked up Kagura in her arms as best she could, half dragging her as it were, and moved to the back of the shrine.

"Father," she breathed aloud, "You said there was some secret of our clan here, a last resort. What did you mean?" Yomi closed her eyes and tried to remember her lessons, plans for things she had never thought would happen at the time. "...Below," Her eyes shot open and examined the floor for what her father had said would be there, a small rectangular outline in the floor boards. The girl gently lowered her charge to the floor and ran her fingers along the gap in the wood until she found a latch. She pulled it, but at first it wouldn't budge.

"Hey, I think I saw someone go in there! A couple girls!"

"Drag them out with the rest then! Let the men have some sport!"

A white hot ember of terror bloomed in Yomi's chest. She fumbled the latch for a moment until she got both hands on it, slick with sweat. With a grunt, she pulled. There was groan this time as the trapdoor rubbed against the floor that camouflaged it, but it stopped before it cleared an inch. The eight year old was huffing now, but two small hands shot under her own and found grips on the door lip. Kagura wasn't looking at her, but Yomi felt a wave of affection roll for the six year old.

"Ready?" Kagura spoke so softly Yomi hardly heard her.

"Now!" The older girl finished and both pulled up as hard as they could manage. With a creaking groan, the door flew on its hinge so fast the latch was ripped from Yomi's grip and gravity slammed it down on the wood behind with a loud crash. Both girls stared dumbly down the steps, carved into the stone beneath the shrine, as they descended into shadow. Then Yomi heard heavy foot falls just outside the shrine door.

"Run!" She hissed, and fairly shoved Kagura down the steps in front of her. Yomi stood and scurried toward the trap door, taking a breath before lifting the heavy slab of wood. She had to close the door behind them and pray their pursuers wouldn't notice it. The eight year old had taken the first few steps and had the door half closed when the shrine door exploded inward in a cloud of splinters.

"Ahhh!" Yomi's yelp was lost in the cacophony; her violent start had made her lose her balance. The trap door slammed shut and she felt her shoulder impact the stone first. She tried to twist to regain her footing, but it was all she could do keep her head from hitting the stairs as she tumbled down into the blackness. Then, a slight error brought her head down on the lip of one stone step and she knew no more.

When Yomi regained awareness, she found Kagura leaning over her. Her face was the picture of care, worry, and stark terror, but broke into relief when she caught her surrogate sister's eyes.

"Yomi-nēchan, you're awake! But you're hurt..." Kagura trailed off as her eyes were transfixed by something just above Yomi's brow. The older girl felt something warm and wet trickling down the side of her head, she touched the spot and her hand came away crimson. She felt woozy, but forced herself to a knee. The younger girl affixed herself to Yomi's arm and allowed herself to be used for support. The cavern they found themselves in was tiny, hardly six paces across and two dozen deep from where they stood at the foot of the stair, though the other end was too dark to see clearly. Yomi did not despair because the cavern was small. She despaired because it was a cavern, not the escape tunnel she had hoped for.

"Come on, Kagura-chan, we have to keep moving..." The mere act of talking was painful, her head was far from her only injury from that fall. Arm over Kagura's shoulder, Yomi limped forward. Her eye caught on something odd no sooner than her second step. The blood had bled from her head injury, it was flowing along the cavern floor in rivulets as if it were heading steeply downhill, though the surface was fairly flat. She followed the rivulets with her eyes until the dim of the far side of the cavern made it impossible.

"We shouldn't go this way." Kagura spoke so suddenly and crisply, Yomi had to do a double take. The girl had her eyes fastened at the end of the room. She had not seen the blood, but something was bothering her. Yomi scrutinized the shadows, the way they seemed to bend as you looked at them. For a moment she felt a peculiar touch of foreboding intimately coupled with a dark fascination.

Then the light from the stairs grew brighter and she heard men's voices shouting. Her fascination was dispelled immediately.

"Move," The word was free of her throat before she had time to think. The two girls began their shaky approach. By their third step, Yomi could hear heavy footfalls on the stairs. Her heart leapt into her throat and beat faster with every footstep as they grew closer. Suddenly she was violently shoved forward. Stone rushed up to meet her and the breath was forced from her chest as a crushing weight pressed down on the small of her back.

"Did you really think you could hide, little girl?" The voice, low and mocking, sneered at her from above. Yomi tried to scream, but found herself unable to breathe at all, a sharp pain in her chest.

"These are the ones." Her blood ran cold at the sound of that voice, impossibly deep and echoing more than it should in such a small space. The weight on her back was suddenly gone. Almost against her will, she twisted just enough to see behind her. The being that had spoken was certainly no human. It stood a head taller than the unkempt mercenary that had stepped on her back and even taller compared to the rest. Its gray-blue skin and red carapace of armor caught what little light there was, revealing bulging muscles and curved dark horns emerging from its scalp to sweep behind its head. Beady red eyes filled with a malicious mirth peered at her from under a heavy ridged brow. Fangs pulled into a smile.

"W-why?" Yomi's mouth moved without thought. She wasn't even sure what she was asking. The monster, she knew it was a demon now, the sort of creature her clan was sworn to hunt, crossed its thick arms. The smile seemed to widen.

"In time, you will know." Yomi heard Kagura whimper at the sound of the unnatural voice. "Take them, you will have your reward when we are far from here." A callous hand seized Yomi's arm painfully and yanked her to her feet. "Wait." The girl shut her eyes. Despair welled up, the strength left her limbs, she felt darkness would swallow her whole. Kagura's small hand clutched her arm.

"What's that?" For a moment she was confused, but then realized that everyone had stopped moving. A moment later, she heard what had drawn the attention of Kagura and the demon. It was a wet, slurping noise, as if some starving beast was trying to draw the last drops of nourishment from a corpse. 'Father,' She thought, 'what is that?'

"What the hell is that?" One of the mercenaries muttered. Her eyes opened. At the edge of the shadows encompassing the far end of the cavern there was movement, little more than a vague silhouette pressed low to the ground.

"Get a torch." One of the men grunted. There were a few moments of fumbling as someone passed on the torch from the upper stairs. In another moment the cavern was awash with red-orange light. What little breath she had regained caught in Yomi's chest. A shudder ran down her spine. Something was very wrong here, beyond the tragedy of this night.

The figure was all in shadows, a mop of ash blond hair atop her head, for by the contours of its body it was indeed female. Her face was nearly pressed to ground, where a far too long tongue lapped at something on the ground.

"What the!? What were those snobs keeping down here?" The man holding Yomi's arm said nervously and stepped back. She hardly noticed. The girl had just realized that the creature was lapping up blood, she unconsciously touched her head wound with her free hand and winced at the sting, her blood. The creature raised her head and transfixed Yomi with twin crimson eyes, luminescent even in the torchlight.

"Kindred? They were all thought dead." That unnatural deep voice seemed more amused than concerned. There was a coarse scraping of metal; Yomi realized he must have drawn a sword. "I will remedy that. Kill it, take its head!" There was a moment's pause while the men hesitated. The girl saw the creature's mouth widen into a smile full of porcelain razors.

For a moment, she nearly fainted.

Then the hand on her arm disappeared and something warm and wet splattered her face. The creature had her arm stuck in the middle of the man's chest. Blood gushed from the wound and dripped the floor in a cascade. His mouth was open in a silent scream. Out of the corner of her eye, Yomi saw Kagura go limp, her small body dangling from her captor's grip like a rag doll. It was finally all too much for her.

"Fools!" The deep voice hissed. "I'll do this myself." The creature met gazes with Yomi.

_Don't worry, everything will be alright_. She gasped, she had heard those words inside her own head, but her ears heard nothing. They had a peculiar accent attached to them. Then the creature's mouth parted and the fangs bit down. This time, the man did scream. Yomi's stomach lurched and she bent double to vomit on the floor. She fell on her side and blackness enveloped her thoughts.

_**-Out of darkness, a hope-**_

When Yomi awoke, the first thing she saw was a pair of scarlet orbs peering down at her from a beautiful pale face set in an expression of concern. Instantly, the expression brightened.

"Good, you're awake!" The chipper Kindred exclaimed with such energy and glee that Yomi was momentarily stunned. Then she screamed and she kept screaming as she flailed and attempted to distance herself from the creature. She didn't get far. The creature was holding her in its arms and its expression was once more concerned. "Master? Don't move, you're hurt!"

"Let me go!" The eight year old screamed desperately. To her own shock, the creature instantly relaxed her grip and allowed her to scramble free. Yomi kept scrambling until she felt the cold stone at her back. Her eyes darted about. The mercenaries and the demon were still there, or rather what was left of them. They were torn to pieces, everything was red. She spied the demon's head near the far wall. The rest of him was by the foot of the stairs. Her eyes swiveled back to the creature, the kindred as the demon had called it. She had stood and was walking towards Yomi now, her face the picture of worry.

"Stay away!" Yomi wrapped her arms around herself. For the first time she got a good look at the kindred. What she had originally taken for a black outfit was actually series of wrappings, many layers of the faded white cloth covered with the black ink of countless binding seals. Much of the cloth was torn and hung about her in rags. The kindred stopped, perplexed. Then a look of understanding came over her.

"Master, do you know what I am?"

"K-kindred," Yomi stammered out, "But-"

"...But you don't know what that is." The kindred nodded solemnly. She glanced at the demon corpse. "And apparently all the rest are extinct. You are an Isayama, right?"

"Y-yes," The kindred smiled, a genuine smile untainted by malice or bloodlust. Yomi felt some small comfort despite herself.

"And your parents never told you about me?" Yomi only nodded an affirmation. "I see..." The kindred looked thoughtful for a moment. Abruptly she knelt on one knee and bowed her head. "My name is Seras Victoria, master. I am your family's legacy."

"Y-Yomi," The girl felt no less bewildered than before, but the way the kindred kept calling her master was disturbing. "My name is Yomi." Seras lifted her head and offered a warm smile.

"Yomi-sama... Your family is descended from an old line known as Hellsing, hunters like you. By virtue of that blood I am compelled to obey you and serve you, so please don't cry. I'm here to help." She held out a hand. The eight year old stared at it apprehensively. Perhaps she was simply too exhausted and in pain to be suspicious. Perhaps she just wanted something to go right after the night's events. Whatever the reason, Yomi reached out and took the offered hand. Seras stood and gently pulled Yomi up to stand beside her. "What about your friend, Yomi-sama?"

"Kagura-chan!" The girl shouted abruptly. She had been so consumed by her own terror that the younger girl had slipped her mind entirely. She searched the ground quickly and saw Kagura's tiny form, curled on the ground. "Kagura-chan!" She shouted again as she rush to her friend's side. All at once, Seras was there, one hand on Yomi's shoulder, the other supporting Kagura's head.

"Don't worry, she's just had a bad fright." She patted Yomi's shoulder comfortingly. "Let's get out of this cellar, shall we?" The kindred's arm dropped from the girl's shoulder and curled around Kagura. She stood with the small girl cradled in her arms.

"There'll be more of them." Yomi said numbly. The frantic energy of stark terror had left her, leaving only emotional and physical exhaustion. Seras offered her another small smile. This time, Yomi could see fangs, far too white in the twilight.

"Don't worry, master. I won't let anyone harm you." The girl felt her stomach lurch and nearly vomited again. Instead, she turned her back stiffly and led the way up the stairs in silence. When they emerged from the shrine, it became apparent that the attack had run its course. The sounds of battle were gone; the fires were fewer and burned lower. 'How long was I fainted?'

"Is anyone left?" She breathed and for a moment she felt that dizziness might overcome her and send her headlong down the steps, but she clung to her lucidity with every ounce of will she could summon.

"I think so." The kindred spoke behind her. "I don't hear any heartbeats." The words, softly spoken, drove a knife into Yomi's heart. She swallowed hard. "Father said..." She stopped for a moment as her voice nearly broke, fearful that if she continued she would begin to weep and be unable to stop. "F-Father always said that Konohagakure was an ally. We... We should go there."

"I know the way," The kindred's voice was gentle and she began down the steps before the girl. After a moment, Yomi followed. The wooden frame of her childhood home was yet smoldering. Far too many bodies with familiar faces stared at her with unseeing eyes. She resolutely refused to look towards the spot where her father had fallen. If she saw his eyes set in that glassy stare, she would be undone.

_**-Out of light, a foreboding-**_

"Wait," Yomi stopped and looked at the kindred questioningly. They had passed outside the compound half a mile ago, though the red glow of the remaining fires could still be seen behind them. Kagura had awoken, but was in no state to walk on her own. Seras was staring into the darkness intently, the small girl in her arms stirring slightly at her words.

"What is it?" Yomi's voice was strained.

"Someone is alive." The girl nearly jumped a mile upon hearing those words.

"What!?" A disproportionate sense of relief flooded her, mingling with shock and wariness. The kindred pointed into the shadows.

"A few hundred yards that way," Yomi did not wait, she immediately began a stumbling run in the direction indicated. Seras called out to her in concern, but she paid no heed. She made it several yards before the bodies started appearing, mercenaries, each dead by horrible wounds. They were scattered about the forest floor like so many leaves. Yomi did not pause. After a brief time, she finally arrived in a clearing. The moonlight gave the space a pale surreal quality. She heard his labored breathing before she laid eyes on him, and when she did she gasped.

"Tsuchimiya-sama!" The gray haired man was propped against a tree. He bore a horrible wound upon his chest. Even Yomi knew he was not long for the world. She rushed to him and fell on her knees, unsure what to do.

"Yomi-san," He spoke faintly, as if struggling to remain conscious was a trial and in and of itself. "You are alive... Good. The village..." His question died at the sight of her face and what he saw written there. "...I see... Tell me, is Kagura-"

"Otō-sama!" Yomi's head whipped around. Kagura stood at the edge of the clearing with Seras' silhouette just barely visible in the forest behind her. She used forward but stopped short just behind Yomi, staring at her father's wound with eyes full of fear.

"Kagura-chan..." Relief flooded his voice, then it turned stony and stern. "Kagura-chan, I am dying. Though you are young, you must take on the legacy of our clan, do you understand." The small girl did not answer, indeed she hardly seemed to breathe. She had only grown paler. "Be strong, Kagura-chan. You must be strong... If you are to control Byakuei." He lifted his shaking hands to form a seal in front of him. Yomi turned to her friend in worry, but Kagura seemed to have sunk into the same numb trance that Yomi herself had been in as they left the village. She lowered herself to her knees and formed the same seal.

What happened next, Yomi was not entirely sure and later her memories of it would be unclear and disjointed. She recalled Tsuchimiya-sama's intense look of concentration, a peculiar glow, and most of all, the wolf. It appeared as if made of fog, only for an instant, a great canine with fierce eyes and fur ghostly white. Then it was gone. She heard Kagura cry out in pain, then the small girl was pressed to her chest, sobbing. She wrapped her arms around her friend absently, but her attention was on Tsuchimiya-sama. His weary eyes had come to rest on Seras' half hidden form.

"She is free? I see then..." His eyes met Yomi's. "Then you both shall see the end of this world. I am sorry." Then the head of the Tsuchimiya clan of demon hunters breathed his last and a shiver of foreboding went through Yomi. She clutched Kagura tightly to her and finally allowed herself to cry. 'After tonight, there will be no more tears, for Kagura's sake.'

_**-After the storm, one foresees the worst yet to come-  
**_  
There are beings in the cosmos for whom the advent of man is still recent history. To their great age, humans are but stumbling children that have yet to realize their place in Creation.

One such being is Death.

Death, one of the Firstborn Nephilim created in the mold of Absalom; Death, creator of the Grand Abominations that razed worlds into lifeless husks; Death, kinslayer that executed the genocide of his own people...

...and most of all, Death, the savior of all mankind.

It had been a very long time since mankind's restoration, since he and his three remaining siblings had cast down the Dark Prince and his legions, since the Charred Council had turned against them. Those old foes were gone now, but the Balance would be maintained. The treaties between the First and Second Kingdoms were rewritten and a new End-War loomed. The Horsemen had gathered Old Ones from many worlds and formed a new body to enforce the truce and ensure the restoration of Earth, the Celestial Bureaucracy. With them he had put mechanisms in place to ensure mankind's growth. With them he had devised the new seals that would determine the time of the next End War.

Now, standing in the ruins of the hunter's clans with the bright glare of late morning sun beating down on the burnt husks and rotting corpses, he could only feel the futility of his efforts.

"No one else was to know that the priestesses' spirits had been reborn yet." He muttered to the air, for only his habitual companion was there to hear him. Dust was perched atop a corpse, enjoying a meal of dead flesh. He knew that they yet lived, he even knew that they had reached Konohagakure only an hour or so ago, but what troubled him more was the demon whose deceased spirit he had just consulted. In a fit of cosmic irony, the Phantom General that had employed and empowered the human mercenaries had been a mercenary himself. His price had been souls and his employer had been anonymous, so there was no proof the Second Kingdom was to blame.

"You called us, brother." War's voice, low and dour, cut through the grave silence. Death turned to face his siblings and examined them for a moment. War stood proud, Chaoseater slung over his armored shoulder. His hard features were set in a scowl. His pale blue eyes and the red crescent mark on his forehead burned bright in the darkness of his red cowl. Fury had her arms crossed, her alabaster skin granting a frigid impression in the light. She was impassive, though Death knew she could be terribly fierce when she needed to be. What Strife felt, the eldest Horseman could not see beyond his mask and perpetually narrow yellow eyes, but through countless years of experience, Death knew that he would be the most opposed to his plan.

"Someone has attempted to sway the balance." He stated simply.

"Yes, about that." Strife waved his arm to indicate the general vicinity. "How exactly does the destruction of one tiny little village add up to a danger to the balance?" His annoyance at being there was clear.

"These humans were demon hunters, a task I assigned their clan centuries ago."

"Why and why do we care?" Strife snapped impatiently.

"I assigned a clan to hunt demons on Earth to prevent interference in mankind's growth as the Third Kingdom." Death looked at Strife pointedly. "We cannot be there to prevent every transgression." He surveyed his siblings one more time and braced himself. "I told you six years ago that the souls of the priestesses had been reborn amongst mankind..." Immediately all three younger Nephilim became more attentive.

"The keepers of the seals..." Fury said quietly. "What is their involvement?"

"One was born into the clan slain here, the other to a subservient clan that also now lies dead." There was silence for a long moment. Fury and War's expressions grew grave.

"Then why bother to call us? If they died, then we'll just have to wait a few more centuries for them to be reborn from the Well." Strife stepped forward and glowered at Death.

"Because they are not dead, brother." The eldest Nephilim's voice had all the warmth of a glacier. "They escaped, but we must ensure their safety and that they stay out of the hands of angels and demons." Seeing this as his cue, Death moved from his position to reveal four small forms covered with white cloth behind him. "And for that, we must take on human guises."

"What!?" Strife blurted. "You want us to- Those are corpses! As much fondness as we know you have for dead things, I don't share your fetish."

"Enough!" War growled. Strife glanced at him and shook his head with a disgusted noise. The silver haired horseman turned his attention back to Death, though even he wore an expression of distaste. "What do you have in mind, brother?"

"These children were members of the Hayabusa clan," Death explained dispassionately. "As I assigned the Tsuchimiya to hunt demons, I assigned the Hayabusa to hunt angels... They too were attacked and killed. I saved their bodies and prevented them from decaying." Now even Fury's lips were curled in thinly veiled disgust. "I have devised a ritual that will allow each of us to take on one of their forms, to rejuvenate their bodies and continue their lives... While our own power remains sealed within."

"You mentioned our powers being sealed?" Fury interjected. Death nodded.

"I will hold the seals on the majority of your power. In time you will hold all your power yourselves."

"Oh," Strife's voice was heavy with sarcasm. "Do you not trust us, brother?"

"With many things. With being subtle and showing restraint? No, I do not." The eldest dead panned.

"Then... we are to be children..." War said unhappily.

"Consider it a chance to relive the childhood you never had." Now it was Death's turn for sarcasm. He quickly sobered. "We need to hurry, the priestesses have already reached Konohagakure and soon they will send their shinobi to investigate."

"I can't believe I'm going along with this..." Strife muttered.

_**-The games of power, everlasting-**_

It was sunset now, but the Sandaime was in no mood to appreciate the sight of the village at twilight. He had far too much on his mind.

"How are they settling in to their temporary quarters?" He was speaking of the two small girls that had arrived early that day and their... peculiar guardian. The strange girl wrapped in seals was the talk of the village elders and clan heads, at least until they saw the creature the smaller of the two girls was capable of summoning.

"Under the circumstances, they are settling in well, Hokage-sama." The masked ANBU kneeling before his desk responded. The Hokage removed his pipe.

"You can take off that mask, Kakashi, we can speak as friends now." Obliging, Kakashi removed the white painted mask typical of ANBU operatives to reveal... another mask beneath covering the lower half of his face. "What is your impression of the girls and their... creatures?"

"Hokage-sama," Kakashi bowed his head in thought for several moments. "The girls are traumatized, but they still show surprising competence given their age. The older girl, Isayama Yomi, noticed us before many genin would have." He hesitated. "The creatures they control... I believe the woman claiming to be the older girl's servant sensed us before we sensed them. She seemed entirely unconcerned by us. The creature the younger of the two summoned, Byakuei she called it, seemed to be summoned from within her..."

"...Like a jinchurikii." Sarutobi sighed. "Though given that it is passed down amongst the leaders of her clan, the elders and clan heads have seen to classify both of their servants as kekkai genkai." He shook his head. "When I brought up the matter of what was to be done to uphold our friendship with their clans, most of the clan heads volunteered to take them in as wards."

"They want the kekkai genkai added to their clan," Kakashi noted. "If one of the girls marries a future clan head..."

"The kekkai genkai will be passed down amongst the heads of that clan for all generations to come." The Sandaime finished. "I have no desire to see those children blatantly used as tools."

"Hokage-sama, you have the final say. You can deny them."

"Would that I could," Sarutobi smiled wryly. "But absolute power is a myth. The elders and clan heads wield considerable influence amongst the shinobi and the civilians. I don't have to give them everything they want, but I must appease them somehow or risk a schism." Kakashi tilted his head.

"You have something is mind?"

"I do," The Hokage replaced his pipe in his mouth. "I'm going to see if I can convince Sasuke Uchiha to take them in. He lives all by himself now, it would be good for the boy after what happened. Alternatively, the Hyuuga clan was interested despite having no male heir as clan head."

"It sounds like they're mostly interested in making sure the other clans don't gain an edge over them." Kakashi finally gave up kneeling and stood. "They'd want her loyal to them, but they wouldn't likely try to manipulate her into something more committed."

"I wouldn't entirely rule out them trying to marry her to another within the clan," The Sandaime made a vague offhand gesture. "But I doubt they'd be willing to trust anyone but the head of the main house with that kind of power. It could destabilize their clan. Unfortunately, the elders are probably going to want to split the children up to avoid granting any one clan too much power... And I am grudgingly inclined to agree."

"It sounds as if you have it all figured out, Hokage-sama." Kakashi smiled in that odd way of his, somehow communicating it with his one visible eye.

"Easy for you to say, you don't have to convince the clan heads to accept it." The Sandaime laughed. Just then the door opened and the Hokage's secretary stuck her head in the room.

"Hokage-sama! There's a message from the ANBU team you sent out earlier." Sarutobi gestured for her to come forward and she placed a scroll in his hand. The secretary bowed and left the room.

"New from the team investigating the clan compound?" Kakashi asked curiously. The Hokage's face grew grave as he read the scroll's content.

"Yes, it seems what the children told us was correct. The hunter clan compound is gone and there are no other survivors. Furthermore, it seems a friendly clan of shinobi was also massacred. Four surviving children made their way to the hunter clans only to find them already gone."

"That can't be coincidence." The ANBU captain noted. The Sandaime nodded in agreement.

"By the description, it was the same attacker."

"What could anyone hope to gain by the destruction of demon hunting clans?"

"I'm not sure," he turned to the window and gazed over the village. The sun had set now and light was fading fast. "But we'll have to consider the idea that the sponsors of these mercenaries may not be human." They stood in silence a moment, letting the possibility sink in. "At any rate, the children are being brought in. I'll have to see where to put them as well..." The old man shook his head. "I've taken enough of your time, Kakashi, you are dismissed." The ANBU captain broke from his reverie and offered a bow in the Hokage's direction.

"Hokage-sama," He turned and departed. When the door shut behind him, the Sandaime heaved a heavy sigh and wondered just what enemy he might be making for Konoha by taking in these children.

_**-Ourselves, but not ourselves-**_

It was a curious feeling at first, feeling one's very being... compressed for lack of a better term, molded to fit another's flesh. Then came the other sensations. The children were dead, their souls departed, but echoes remained. Not that Death could complain. Those fragment made pretending to be traumatized children mush easier, but it was unnerving to feel such a raw terror and sorrow, even if only an echo. They'd had scant hours to become accustomed to these feelings and forms before the ANBU had arrived, but it was enough.

"Konoha..." He muttered quietly. His familiar tones in his new high child's voice sounded bizarre to his ears. They stood at the gate beside the shinobi that had brought them here. The one that had carried him, a tall woman in a bird mask, nodded.

"We will take you to the Hokage now. He will find a place for you." There was a gentle comforting tone to her voice. The fragments of the boy that was were soothed by it. The Horseman, however, had to look down to hide the twitch of an ironic smile on his face. In millennia he could count on one hand the number of beings that has seen him without his mask. It was something to get used to. When he had mastered himself and fallen into step with the ANBU, Death cast his gaze back at his siblings with a grimaced. The physical transition had not been quite as smooth as he had hoped.

The child he now was had been the clan head's nephew and the oldest of the four children he had scavenged when he died, an eight year old, so now he stood taller than his siblings. The boy's eyes, however, had turned a deep hazel and his skin had attained an unhealthy pallor which only seemed to be enhanced by the contrast of his coarse black hair.

His siblings had not gone unchanged. Fury and Strife had taken the bodies of a pair of fraternal twins a year younger than the boy he now was, members of a branch family. Death was certain the dead girl had possessed brown hair and a fair complexion, but now her hair was a deep wine red and her skin was pale as alabaster. Strife's body was least changed, having a darker skin tone than fury, but his hair was stuck in the same spiked formation he was accustomed. Death wasn't sure if that was the effect of the process or styling he had done after the fact. Both returned his gaze with amber eyes. His third sibling returned his look with blue eyes and thinly veiled anger.

The Red Rider did not appreciate being placed in the youngest of the bodies, the young only son of the clan's best smith, but Death had assured him it was necessary for one of them to be of an age with the younger priestess. Still, things would have been simpler had the young child not possessed War's silver hair or the striking blue eyes. As now the four looked more like a menagerie of the strange and unusual as blood family members. Mildly annoyed, Death turned his gaze forward and promptly stopped walking.

"Is something wrong?" The female ANBU asked him. If he had any intention of answering that question truthfully, he would have said yes. She was standing in the street, not far from the door to a large apartment block. A curtain of smooth black hair covering half her face, the violet eyes, it was Isayama Yomi.

The girl that would become the Black Priestess, emissary of damnation.

"Nothing," He muttered quietly. Without another word, he began walking. The ANBU took the lead again, and spoke no more, apparently dismissing the incident. It was not the young priestess that occupied his thoughts now, however. That distinction belonged to the feminine shade standing in her shadow...

The rest of their walk through the village was without incident. It was late and only a handful of establishments remained open. The ANBU preferred to skirt such areas, so the nephlilim saw not another living soul until the Hokage's office was before them. The secretary offered them a few curious looks and a disingenuous smile before ushering them inside. Death's eyes narrowed on the old man behind the desk. His gentle grandfatherly smile actually seemed genuine. That was a good sign.

"Welcome, young ones." The old man greeted quietly. "I cannot say how sorry I am for your loss. No child should have to lose so much in such a short time." Death felt the child's emotions stirring at the reminder, a wave of grief and panic. He clamped down on the feelings, but something must have shown in his face. The Hokage's features shifted into concern. The Horseman decided it was best to speak and drew on the child's memory.

"Hokage-sama," He allowed a slight tremor to enter his voice and bowed his head. "My uncle...and my father always spoke of Konohagakure as an ally and friend." He took a shaky breath. "My name is Hayabusa Takeshi. These are my cousins." He turned his head to the side so as to look at his sibling out of the corner of his eye. "Hayabusa Maiko," Fury, "Hayabusa Seiji," Strife, "and Hayabusa Shiro." War.

"It is my pleasure to meet each of you." The Sandaime inclined his head respectfully. "And you should know that your clan's friendship with the Leaf remains as strong as it ever was."

"Hokage-sama," Death took another breath and ordered his thought to what needed to be done. "On behalf of my clan, I would like to-" The old man cut him off with a gesture of his hand.

"You have had a trying day, we can speak again in the morning. Please, I have arranged a place for you to stay the night." Death hesitated a moment, he hadn't anticipated being overruled.

"I-Thank you, Hokage-sama." As they were led from the room, the other three sent him looks of varying degrees of annoyance and impatience. He paid them no heed, Death's thoughts were on his own plans for the night.

_**-Walking softly, the night full of deathly shadow-**_

It was a simple task for Death to slip out of rooms the Hokage had arranged. It was harder to get around all the surveillance ANBU had set up, but he had managed it easily enough. With his small form, the night streets were extremely easy to navigate unseen. When he arrived in an alley with no windows, he stopped at the end and settled down cross legged to wait.

His thoughts turned to the seals that held the End War at bay. It had seemed an issue at first, to create new seals out of reach of those that might repeat the disaster of the first "End" War. Then came...a revelation. Two priestesses, one for the Light and one for the Dark. In their hands lay the fate of the Third Kingdom... With those stakes in mind, he needed to be sure of no outside interference.

"Bloody bird!" He heard an annoyed voice scream out. A smile tugged at his lips as he rose to his feet. An unusually large crow swooped around the corner and landed on his outstretched arm. Death grimaced as the bird's talons dug into the young human flesh of his arm, another thing to get used to. Just as swiftly a familiar silhouette appeared at the alley's entrance. Voluptuous, slender, and nearly as pale Fury, her crimson eyes settled on him and she frowned.

"You're one of the Hayabusa kids. What are you doing here?" She drew closer. He made out her short blonde hair and attire, consisting of what appeared to be a local taste, a black and red floral print kimono, save that it was cut at mid-thigh, and a pair of black open toed sandals not unlike those he had seen some shinobi wear.

"I sent Dust to bring you here." The crow tilted its head in her direction. Death fixed her with an icy stare. "I want to know why you have attached yourself to Isayama Yomi, Cainite." The woman stiffened.

"I'm not in the mood for answering questions from just anyone." She spread her feet and balled her fists. "Especially kids that know a lot more than they should." Death frowned. Dust flew to the rooftops with a shake of his arm. He began to walk with slow precise steps toward the kindred.

"I am not a mere child." Inhuman deep tones slipped into his voice, a shimmer appeared behind him, then a massive violet hooded specter appeared behind him, wings of bone jutting from its back and skeletal hands grasped the haft of a massive scythe. It was there for an instant, then only night darkness. "And I will not hesitate to end you if you mean her harm." Death expected fear, horror, surprise, but the kindred's expression showed only the latter mingled with a perplexed look.

"I could tell you weren't human." Her right arm seemed to shift unnaturally, her hand disappeared into writhing shadows. "But I'm no average kindred, I'm a Draculina!" An amorphous pitch darkness grew around her from her arms, and then the eyes started appearing, bright, too large and red as blood. From the mass emerged a dark dog's head with gaping maw filled with fangs. Then, just like Death's specter, it was gone. The woman placed her hands on her hips. "But I would never hurt Yomi! She's my master and even then, she's just a little girl!" Now it was Death's turn to be surprised.

"Master? Draculina?" He muttered. "Can fate truly be so ironic?"

"What's ironic?" Now she looked properly nonplussed. Death found that this pleased him.

"Is Yomi of the Hellsing lineage?" He asked directly. He folded his arms over his chest.

"Wha-How do you know that name!?" The kindred sputtered. "Nobody has spoken that name in centuries, how do you know it!?"

"I've learned many things about humanity over the past thousand years." A satisfied smirk pulled at his lips. "I'll take that as a 'yes' then. So tell me, Cainite, how did you survive when no other of your kind did?"

"I'm not saying a thing until you tell me who you are?!" Her fangs were bared. "And I have a name, Seras Victoria!" The Horseman scowled impatiently.

"Who I am doesn't matter; my goal is to ensure the safety of Isayama Yomi and Tsuchimiya Kagura." He walked closer to her until only a handful of paces separated them. "I won't hurt your mistress, but you will tell me how you came to be here."

"...That was a very long time ago." Seras said grudgingly. A faraway look came into her eye. "My master...and his master, we survived when the demons and angels came. Sir Integra waged her war." There was a faint pain in her voice, the faint pain of loss whose scars had healed but never gone away. "She waged it with everyone she could find for nearly a decade. My master reveled in it, but it couldn't last. Sir Integra grew older until the day came that she wasn't fast enough. She gave my master one final order, to kill the Destroyer."

"Well, that obviously didn't end well." Seras looked at Death with a mix of anger and distaste. "But if your master's master died, then how can Yomi be a descendant of Hellsing?"

"I'm getting to that," She nearly snarled. "My master... He attacked the Black Throne, and you seem to know enough to guess what happened next." The look in her eye became distant again. "I wandered, protected what humans I could find, then there were none left, so I hunted demons."

"Then mankind returned."

"Yes," A faint smile touched the woman's face. "Then mankind returned, and Sir Integra among them. It took me nearly a decade to find her, and when I did I found that she had married. I agreed to be bound to her bloodline as my master had been." She fixed Death with determined gaze. "Generations later, when most of the demons had been killed, my master sealed me beneath their shrine." Death nodded in understanding though his expression was distasteful.

"You were an anachronism, with fewer demons you became unnecessary."

"Enough of that!" Seras muttered angrily. "Who are you?"

"Think of me as a guardian." Without warning, Death sprung to the nearest wall and pushed himself up with much more strength than an eight year old should be able to manage. He grabbed hold of a windowsill and pulled himself up. Then again he leapt and pulled himself up to the roof. When he stood and looked down, Seras was standing on the wall, parallel to the ground and unabashedly defying gravity. "The Blood Beast..." He muttered to himself and shook his head. "And the Tsuchimiya pet, the Spirit Beast. It seems there is truth in the foretellings." He met her eyes, "Say nothing to your master of what has occurred here, Cainite, I mean her no harm and I will not hesitate to end you...nor reveal the sordid history of your kind."

He held out his hand and a purple glow pulsed. In an instant Seras' was blinded by a whirlwind of black feather, her ears deafened by a cacophony of greedy crows as the tore, slashed and pecked at her flesh with an icy chill. She cried out, and then lashed out. Her arm became indistinct pulsing shadow and ripped through the mass of birds in a bloody arc. It was over in a moment, but when she made it up to the roof, Death was long gone.

_**-What the future brings-**_

The rest of the night passed unremarkably. Nephilim require very little in the way of sleep, but Death was discovering rapidly that his new form was not quite as resilient. It was a feat of will to keep himself from yawning and rubbing his eyes. He had to keep that in mind when next he planned a midnight outing. Fury and Strife had allowed themselves to succumb to their bodies' desire for sleep. Only War had been waiting awake, though being the youngest in body, he was barely conscious. He had little opportunity to do anything but glare at Death for his exclusion before his little form fell back onto his pillow and he fell asleep. His brother would try to kill him for saying so and he would never allow anyone to hear him describe anything that way, but Death thought he looked surprisingly cute. Now the four were once again being chaperoned to the office of the Hokage.

"So, did anyone have any interesting dreams last night?" Strife chimed in with an arm around Death's shoulders. He was several inches shorter than his older sibling, which made the maneuver slightly awkward. Death knew what his sibling was really asking and met his smile with a disapproving frown

"Now is not the time, Seiji-kun." He carefully removed Strife's arm from his shoulder. The younger horseman scowled and his fists balled. "Tell me," He was speaking under his breath so that even Death struggled to hear him.

"In due time." He muttered. Death had not told his siblings why he was leaving in the dead of night and since they had awoken, Strife had been trying to get him to tell them what happened. He would have done so if the shinobi hadn't been so intent on being their shadows. War muttered something scathing about both his siblings, but Death had detached his interest. They were approaching the Hokage tower now, and he had more plans to execute. He watched Isayama Yomi and Tsuchimiya Kagura walk out of an adjoining street towards the tower with their blood drinking protector in tow and abruptly changed his course to intercept them. The chunin shepherding them stopped but did not impede him. The girls saw him coming and stopped walking. Their own shinobi chaperones glanced at each other but did not stop the boy. Seras narrowed her eyes and frowned at him, her whole body tensing just the slightest degree.

"Tsuchimiya-sama," He said formally with a bow at the waist. "And Isayama-sama. It is good to see you both safe." Kagura gave him a mostly surprised look and seemed at a loss but Yomi took her hand and bowed to him in return.

"Th-thank you, you must be the Hayabusa clan members we heard about." She gave him a warm smile or what was supposed to be one. Death could see just how forced it was. "I'm glad you're safe." The horseman nodded to her and turned towards the Hokage tower. As the girls began to walk again, Death muttered so quietly only Yomi could hear as she passed him.

"Keep up your false cheer and smiles, Yomi. They may save you." Yomi turned sharply, eyes wide, but Death was already halfway back to his siblings.

"I hope you all got what rest you could after the ordeal you've suffered," The Sandaime greeted them all as they filed into his office. "Today we must discuss your future in this village." The old man inclined his head to Yomi and Kagura. "Yomi-san, yesterday you told me you and Kagura-san would be interested in joining Konohagakure. Is this still true?" The girl set her features in determination.

"Yes, Hokage-sama." The old man nodded appreciatively and his gaze shifted to Death.

"And you, Takeshi-san? What do you and your clansmen wish to do?" Death cleared his throat.

"We mean to join the village as well, I meant to tell you last night." The Hokage tilted his head and cast Death with a searching look. He then seemed to shrug and opened his arms wide.

"Then it is my pleasure to welcome you all as citizens of the Village Hidden in the Leaves." He dropped him arms and his expression sobered.

"I have found clans willing to take you in as wards, but I'm afraid I will not be able to keep you together." Yomi and Kagura visibly stiffened. Death and the horseman were unconcerned. "Half of you will become wards of the Hyuuga clan and half of you will become wards of the Uchiha clan. In their compounds you will live and I hope you will come to think of them as family.

* * *

**Author's Note: First off, I'll have you know that this is a very large crossover. This story includes elements of Naruto, Darksiders, Ga-rei, Soul Calibur, and Hellsing, with Jade Empire and Avatar (The one with benders not giant blue cat people) taking part a little later on. I know there haven't been many Naruto characters yet, but there will be.**

**On the subject of Darksiders, I'm going with the assumption that the Horseman went to war with Lucifer and the Charred Council. They won, but created the Celestial Bureaucracy (Jade Empire) to take the Council's place and reestablish the balance. I actually have a whole history about what happened after humanity got resurrected.**

**On the subject of Ga-rei, I'm going to be honest and say it was not a very good manga. The anime, Ga-rei Zero? Was fantastic, one of the few anime's that actually nearly brought me to tears. But I'm borrowing the concepts of the White Priestess and Black Priestess from the manga.**

**Finally, most of you are probably wondering where in all hell the terms Kindred and Cainite are coming from. A select few will recognize them as terminology from Vampire: the Masquerade. A brief crash course in Masquerade: Vampires are called Kindred, sometimes Cainite or the Kindred of Cain, since they trace their ancestry back to Cain as the first vampire and the biblical first murderer. I've actually tied and modified that origin story to Darksiders as well (Hint: One of Samael's titles is the Blood Prince). Alucard of Hellsing (AKA Dracula) also has ties to Samael.**

**On the story itself, I don't feel like I did the conversation with Death and Seras very well. It feels too much like an exposition dump. I also really hope I used all the honorifics correctly. I'm not really used to writing with them. I tried to leave a lot of hints of things to come and now worry that I overdid it and merely left people bewildered.**

**One last note, you may have noticed that I named the clan the Four Horsemen impersonated members of as Hayabusa. This is named after the main character's clan in the Ninja Gaiden series, but at this time I have no plans of including anything from Ninja Gaiden. I just wanted to make that clear.  
**

**With all that out the way, I hope you've enjoyed this beginning. If you liked it, or at least have some constructive criticism, please leave a review.**


	2. A Day in the Life

**~Chapter Two: A Day in the Life~**

Two years is a very long time to a child. Almost too long to think about, but it was two years ago that the Priestesses and the Horsemen were split between the noble clans of Hyuuga and Uchiha. The eldest "children" became the housemates of the last Uchiha, living with him in his empty compound.

The youngest were sent to the Hyuuga, becoming wards of the main house, living and training with the children of the clan head amidst an atmosphere of severity and respect...

* * *

**_-Forgone conclusions-_**

She knew what she was supposed to do. Her movements were to be fluid, her strikes solid. Dodge, feint, strike, block, miss, counter. She was no prodigy of taijutsu, the eight year old had learned that at least over the past two years. Dodge, feint, strike, block, miss, counter. Nor could she effectively learn the style her opponent was using, her own was a mongrel form produced by more necessity than anything else. Part the graceful movements of Gentle Fist and part standard academy taijutsu strikes, and hardly a perfect execution of either. Dodge, feint, strike, block, cou-

A stab of pain in her chest made Kagura cry out. She fell back and landed squarely on her back. The pain faded quickly to a persistent stinging, like a skinned knee. Kagura bit her lip to hold the involuntary tears at bay.

"Very good, Hanabi-chan." The aforementioned girl was unreadable to Kagura as she lowered her outstretched palm and sat before her father with a dignified bow. Hyuuga Hiashi was not an easy man to please, but his younger daughter, the very same age as Kagura herself, rarely failed to do so. Cringing, she forced herself to her knees and mimicked Hanabi's bow. "Kagura-chan," She forced all emotion from her voice and kept her eyes trained on the floor.

"Hyuuga-sama," She acknowledged. Her gaze shifted without moving her head so that she could see to her right out of the corner of her eye. The clan head of Hyuuga was not their only audience. Several members of the branch families were in attendance including the clan head's nephew, though Kagura did not know them well. The other three, clad in the typical bland whites of the clan, she counted amongst her best friends. She could only see Shiro clearly, his strange silver bangs hanging in his face over a perpetual scowl.

"You do not possess the Byakugan, so you cannot use our Gentle Fist style." By which he meant that he did not expect her to win, she knew, just like every spar so far between the two. His older daughter, Hinata, did not have the luxury of that excuse. "You have improved, but your form remains haphazard. Practice further." His gaze shifted, "Shiro-kun,". Without a word, Shiro rose and took his place while Kagura quickly vacated the training floor and sat herself next to Maiko. Shiro's wine haired cousin offered Kagura a sidelong glance. She thought it was sympathetic but with Maiko she was never quite sure. For her part, she looked to Shiro and smiled with genuine encouragement.

"Hyuuga-san," Shiro bowed stiffly. His voice was toneless, filled neither with reverence nor scorn. She saw Hiashi-sama frown out of the corner of her eye. Hanabi's features shifted nearly imperceptibly, a flicker of determination on her otherwise impassive countenance. She nodded in acknowledgement and shifted into her Gentle Fist stance: feet apart, arms raised but not tense. Shiro simply fell into the standard academy stance, or an uncaring approximation of it.

Kagura realized she was holding her breath; the tension in the room had risen dramatically. Her own bought with Hanabi had been a formality, as had her older sister's, Hinata's, fights. This was what they had arrived to see.

_**-Clouded eyes, hints of the secret-**_

Kenji had served the Hyuuga main family for many years. He was talented; it was as simple as that. He was no child prodigy like Hanabi-sama and Neji-san were rapidly becoming, but his skills were formidable enough to merit several years in ANBU before... retiring from that sort of work. More importantly, he had proved his loyalty to the main family a hundred times over. It was for that reason that he had been asked to attend this practice. It was for that reason that he subtly activated his Byakugan without fear of reprisal as the fight began.

Hanabi moved first, striking with precision and speed many chunin would envy. Kenji could see her chakra flow from each strike in the trademark manner of the clan's style, but that was not his assigned task not to mention quite forbidden for him to observe. His gaze focused on her opponent and he instantly lost any interest in anything else. The remarkable speed with which he avoided the first strike was beside the point, the boy's chakra was... Enflamed.

Normal human chakra appeared luminescent blue to the Byakugan, but this boy's was blazing like a wild fire, bright and orange-red. His movements were decisive and brutal. His chakra flowed with each one, probably adding unprecedented strength and speed to what was otherwise an eight year old child. Such a technique was not uncommon amongst shinobi, but to see it used in such an instinctive manner in a mere child, even an academy student, was passing unusual.

That was when he noticed that Shiro was not dodging or deflecting every hit.

Kenji had to restrain his jaw from actually dropping when he realized why he had yet to succumb to his injuries. The boy's chakra system was resisting the damage that should have been caused by Hanabi's strikes, actively neutralizing the foreign chakra before it could do any real damage. That should have been impossible. Just what was this child?

He watched them exchange several more blows before deactivating his Byakugan. Kenji already knew what would happen next, it had been the talk of the clan every time such matches between the main family's heirs and wards occurred. Shiro struck. Hanabi hit the floor. The match was over. Kenji heard Maiko heave a quiet sigh of either exhaustion or exasperation. For a moment, something like satisfaction flickered over the boy's face. Then he abruptly turned and bowed before the clan head. After a moment, Hanabi followed suit, blushing uncharacteristically.

"Very good, Shiro-kun." Hiashi-sama stated stiffly. "I trust Hanabi-chan will take this defeat to heart and never grow complacent in her training." Shiro nodded and took his seat without a word. Hanabi, with balled fists, did the same. "That will be all." The clan head announced. He stood and made his way from the room. The rest of the branch house members filed out. The children followed their example. Kenji watched them as he was heading for the door. The red haired girl sent Shiro a grimace he returned with a flash of annoyance while the other girl, Kagura, was instantly at his side and talking with quiet excitement. Hanabi and Hinata filed out a different door, the younger Hyuuga heiress casting a backwards glance at the wards and turning a new shade of red. It was either anger or... Something-else-he-was-entirely-forbidden-to-speculate-on. The branch family jounin took a breath and exited the room by the same door Hiashi-sama had taken. Sure enough, the clan head was waiting just outside, facing away from him towards an empty courtyard.

"Hiashi-sama," Kenji bowed his head dutifully. The clan head waved his hand impatiently.

"What did you see?" The jonin inhale hesitantly at the question.

"I... I'm unsure, Hiashi-sama. Shiro-san's chakra was..."

"Resistant to the Gentle Fist style." The clan head stated flatly.

"... His chakra blazed like fire." Kenji added quietly, mostly to himself. The clan head turned to face him and fixed him with a hard look.

"Like anything else?"

"Hiashi-sama?" Kenji was taken aback.

"I know you served in a special unit of ANBU, one with close ties to clan Hayabusa." Kenji felt his heart sink.

"I... left that unit for a reason."

"If it were not important, I would not ask." Hiashi spoke without hesitance or remorse, but the jonin sensed an unspoken sympathy. All shinobi would witness unspeakable things in their lives, few wished to relive them. "I ask because the last time I witnessed chakra behaving anything like that was nine years ago."

"I understand what you're asking, Hyuuga-sama." Kenji set his mouth in a grimace, as if that could ward off memories of inhuman bloodshed. "And I can assure you, Shiro-san's chakra is not like the Kyuubi's." Hiashi tilted his head slightly but remained silent. The jonin took a breath before answering the wordless inquiry. "But it does bear some similarity to the Kyuubi's and the behavior of demon chakra." There, he had said it. The clan head lowered his head and closed his eyes for a moment in thought, or perhaps simply absorbing the information.

"Could it be a kekkai genkai, I have seen similar chakra when Maiko spars though not nearly enough to inhibit Jūken and it only appears in either of them while fighting... or could they be demons in human form?"

"No!" Kenji blurted out in surprise. Hiashi's eyes snapped open and met his own. He stopped short and composed himself, remembering who he was talking to. "Apologies, Hyuuga-sama, but I have seen demons in human form. They can never maintain their guise for an extended period of time, not hours let alone years. If it is a kekkai genkai, then I have never seen it in any member of clan Hayabusa..."

"You have an explanation then?"

"Perhaps," Kenji looked over his shoulder back into the training room. "I was a member of the team sent to the hunter clans' village." He turned his gaze back to Hiashi's surprised features. Only ANBU and the Hokage knew the identity of the shinobi assigned to each mission. "When we arrived we found remnants of some sort of ritual, dark chakra clung to the entire area." His stomach churned from the memory, the air itself had spoken of something profoundly wrong happening there. The clan head frowned.

"I have heard the accounts the children gave when they arrived. None mentioned a ritual."

"They were children frightened for their lives." Kenji shrugged. "It's possible they simply did not understand what was happening. It could have happened after Kagura-san left and before Shiro-san and his cousins arrived, but it definitely happened." The jonin continued. "It is possible that exposure to such potent and powerful chakra... altered their bodies."

"You think they're hybrids..." Hiashi scratched his chin speculatively. Kenji nodded uncertainly.

"Perhaps not half demon, Hiashi-sama, but some part of them is no longer human. I have seen humans altered by demonic power before, though the effects are usually far more evident. From what you tell me, Shiro-san is the most affected." The clan head was quiet for a long time. Then he turned and began to walk away.

"I want you to keep an eye on my wards, Kenji-kun." The jonin's eyes widened in alarm. His duties as a jonin hardly left time for surveillance. "I'm making you their new caretaker."

"What?!"

_**-Preparation, frustration-**_

Kagura was panting heavily, but her opponent offered no respite. His practice sword whistled down towards her only to be parried away. She retaliated, but Shiro moved quickly. Her strike was batted aside. Before she could get her guard up, her shoulder exploded with pain and she was swept off her feet. She shrieked as she fell and clutched her shoulder, now sporting a welt. Kagura held her tears back and looked up to see Shiro looking at her with disappointment in his piercing blue eyes.

"If that had been a real sword, I would have cut you in half." He said flatly. Kagura took a steadying breath and gritted her teeth. She could never win, could she? How could countless hours of training even come close to matching the raw ability Shiro and Hanabi had in spades?

"Are you going to huddle on the ground and give up?" Kagura looked up sharply, tears forgotten. To her surprise, Shiro had extended his hand to her.

"I... I won't give up." She swallowed and allowed her friend to pull her upright, wincing at the pain in her shoulder. "I need to get better... Especially if I want to keep up with you and Hanabi." She offered him a smile. His lips twitched, but that was as close as the stoic mask that was his face ever got to a smile. She took it.

"You have potential," Shiro conceded. "And some natural talent. Work hard and you could become very powerful." She looked at him with a strange expression and began to giggle. He shifted uncomfortably and looked at her in confusion. "What is- GAH!" Suddenly Kagura leapt up and wrapped her arms around him.

"You're so cute when you act all wise and stuff! Even though you're my age!" Shiro gaped in utter horror.

"Unhand me! I'm not cute!"

"Yes you are!"

"I am not!"

-Frustration, contemplation-

"I've seen everything now." Maiko could only stare across the courtyard in disbelief as Kagura glomped onto her brother and giggled madly at his frenzied attempts to dislodge her. Not many people could say they had ever seen the youngest horseman so flustered, and by a child no less. She had spent the entire day mentally chastising him, but somehow this helped make up for it.

"Th-they look like they're h-having fun." Hinata offered. Maiko turned to her shy friend and raised an eyebrow.

"I don't think Shiro is."

"Oh. I-I mean, sorry." She mumbled and fixed her eyes on the ground. The red haired girl sighed and shook her head. She edged closer to the Hyuuga heiress on the step they were sitting on and put a hand on Hinata's shoulder.

"What am I going to do with you? There's no reason to apologize, Hinata-chan. Do you think you're going to get any stronger if you're always so scared of everything?"

"I-I'm not scared of everything." She was still mumbling. "There's..." She clamped her hands over her mouth and her cheeks reddened. Maiko smiled knowingly. The girl that had been Hayabusa Maiko was more inclined to flower arrangements and gossip than battle, some part of that girl had remained firmly behind after her death.

"A boy?" The nine year old's eyes stared at her in mute horror as her blush started inventing new and interesting shades of crimson. Despite herself, Maiko found herself giggling under her breath. Hinata had a way of drawing out the child this body had once belonged to.

"Well, there's your answer!" Maiko let her arm fall and turned her gaze back to Kagura and Shiro's antics.

"Huh?" The Hyuuga heiress stared at her in complete bewilderment.

"Tell me, what's this boy like?"

"Um..." Hinata gulped. "P-promise not to tell anyone?"

"Cross my heart," Maiko glanced at her friend impatiently. "It's not like I asked for his name." Hinata nodded.

"He's very strong, I mean, he doesn't let what other people think affect him." Her eyes had distant look now and Maiko caught a her mouth slowly widening into a smile. "Even when he messes up, he never quits no matter what."

"Then you have to become stronger, more like him." Jolted from her reverie, Hinata looked up in shock.

"Wh-what? B-but I'm not strong, n-not like you and Hanabi-chan..."

"You can become strong, just have some confidence." Something caught her eye that had her do a double take. "...and I think you and your sister might have more in common than you realize." Hinata followed her gaze and covered her mouth in surprise. There was Hanabi, still in her training clothes, hiding behind a tree and peering at Shiro with her face a beat red that could give her sister's a run for its money.

"Now I really have seen everything," Maiko muttered to herself. She suddenly stood. Hinata looked up at her curiously. "Well, you want to get stronger don't you? I'll spar with you."

"R-really? Now?" The heiress stuttered as she rose her feet.

"No time like the present."

_**-By night, siblings conspire-**_

Maiko sparred with Hinata for just over an hour before they had both been called to their academy assignments for the evening. Then she had spent her few idle hours working on a design for a whip she planned to wield in the future once this body had matured. Then it had been a simple matter of waiting until Kagura and Shiro were asleep to slip out of the small house allotted them and over the compound wall.

"You're late." Takeshi frowned as he stepped from the shadows clad only in black. He had been waiting for her only a street away from compound itself. "If you're going to ask to meet with me under the cover of night, at least be on time."

"Apologies, brother." Maiko bowed her head respectfully. "But we really must speak."

"Humph, out with it then."

"First, the White Priestess is not proving as skilled as we had hoped. She is unable to defeat the Hyuuga girl and her swordsmanship progresses slowly." The boy frowned. Maiko still found it quite strange to actually see her brother's expressions, him and Seiji both. She had known both longer with their masks than without.

"She could only have learned the most basic of lessons before her clan was killed. Shiro was to teach her."

"Yes," She cleared her throat. "That is what I wished to speak to you about. Shiro completely lacks restraint. He-"

"He is here," Maiko whirled toward the voice to see the pale haired boy standing back the way she had come.

"Ah, Shiro, good of you to barge in uninvited and raise our risk of discovery." Takeshi deadpanned. "Thank you for demonstrating our sister's point."

"I don't care about that." But his azure eyes cast an angry look in Maiko's direction. "Kagura has the makings of a great swordswoman, but her skill grows slowly despite my efforts." Maiko glared at him incredulously.

"That is because your efforts amount to trying to beat swordplay into her!" She snapped. Shiro wrinkled his nose at her.

"That was how I learned."

"Your training has gained her more bruises than skills!"

"Enough!" Takeshi was suddenly standing between the two, looking from one to the other in exasperation. "Clearly I erred in setting Shiro as the White Priestess's teacher." He sighed. "Which means I must find a replacement."

"Perhaps a human should train a human." Maiko offered.

"The Hyuuga do not teach kenjutsu." Shiro interjected. "And there are few in this village that would take the time to teach swordsmanship to a child that has yet to graduate from the academy, let alone take the request seriously."

"Someone that knows our reasons then." Takeshi scratched his chin for a moment. "I'll think on it. Is there anything else? You were saying something about Shiro-chan here, Maiko?" Shiro bristled at the diminutive, but Maiko spoke clearly.

"Shiro has not been reigning in his energies, I'm certain the Hyuuga have noticed by now." Maiko glanced at her younger brother. "And I'm certain that they will put us under greater scrutiny." The boy humphed and crossed his arms. Without warning he turned and started back in the direction of the Hyuuga compound. "War! We are not finished here!"

"Don't bother." Takeshi waved his arm vaguely. "Shiro will do as he pleases, restraint simply isn't in his nature."

"Then what's to stop his recklessness from threatening our task here?" Maiko growled and clenched her fists.

"I taught him respect once." The older boy spoke darkly. For moment he seemed to grow taller, his features more gaunt. At once he was more the ancient Horseman than the young boy. Then the moment passed. "He will do as I ask, he has his precious honor if nothing else. Do you have any more to report about the Hyuuga?" Maiko took a breath to calm herself and folded her hands in front of her.

"Their suspicions aside, the Hyuuga accept us. The heiress has made me a confidante."

"The rumor mill has it that the younger sister will soon be made the clan heir." Takeshi sat down on a storefront stoop and looked up at his sister. "Hinata will not be useful unless she becomes clan head." 'She isn't merely a tool to be used' a part of her screamed. She restrained it but couldn't stop her frown.

"That won't happen if Hinata improves her skills sufficiently," A smirk crept across her young face. "And even if that fails, I don't think gaining influence with Hanabi will be a problem."

"Oh?"

"She has become... Infatuated with Shiro." Takeshi's eyes widened in astonishment.

"You're kidding..."

_**-Foxy and Moxie-**_

"Hey, Seiji, you get that mud yet?" Seiji grinned up at the blond in the rafters and patted the rim of the bucket at his feet.

"Mud? This isn't just any mud, Naruto my stupid blond friend. I culled this muck from the nastiest gutters in the entire village!"

"Whahaha! Get that stuff up here!" Naruto nearly lost his balance laughing. Seiji heaved the bucket over his head and handed it off to his partner in crime.

"And stop laughing baka, it's after hours but there might still be someone here." Seiji peeked out the window... And nearly jumped out of his skin at the pair of hazel eyes staring back at him unblinkingly. "Wah!"

"What is it?! Did Iruka sensei find us-gah!" Naruto finally did lose his balance and tumbled down with loud crash. "Ow!"

"Er..." Seiji glanced between the staring eyes and his friend. "I mean, yeah!" He shouted. "He's coming this way, make a break for it!" Naruto scrambled to his feet with a yelp and ran as fast as he could straight out the door. Seiji scratched his head. "Well, that was easy."

"I told you to stay away from that one." Takeshi stood in the windowsill with a frown etched into his features. Seiji sighed heavily.

"You know, that appearing out of nowhere trick gets old pretty damn fast. It's pretty inconvenient." He turned his back to his brother and rubbed his forehead.

"Strife," Takeshi warned. "That boy is far more than you know. I'm telling you, the power he holds was never meant to exist. Stop your juvenile tricks before you're in over your head."

"Well, that's cryptic if I've ever heard it. He's harmless, brother, just a blockhead and a trickster." Takeshi sighed heavily at his brother's response.

"Your just doing this to spite me, aren't you?" Strife whirled around with a fierce glare.

"Listen you arrogant bastard! I'm not some stooge to follow your orders without question, without explanation!" His fists curled and started to walk towards the door. "I let you drag me into this foolish protection mission for years, but I won't let you tell me what to do with my own time." He stormed out. Takeshi groaned softly and stared at the ground.

"Strife... You little fool. The Bijuu are not to be trifled with, even by us... Especially this one."

_**-Enter the fated fool-**_

Naruto woke up with a yawn and stretched his arms upward. He grinned to himself at the memory of last night's prank. "I wonder if Seiji got caught? Aw well, this is gonna be great!" He kept laughing until he caught sight of his clock lying halfway across his apartment. "Aw crap! I'm gonna be late!"

After scarfing down a meager breakfast of instant ramen and milk just shy of its expiration date, the jinchurikii donned his customary eye searing orange before sprinting out his door, turning right... And running straight into one of the only neighbors he had in his nearly abandoned apartment block.

"Ah! Sorry sorry sorry!" Naruto scrambled to his feet. "I didn't mean to-" He stopped short when he saw the eyes. That cold stare and the mouth curled into a distasteful sneer as if seeing something unpleasant stuck to his boot.

"Get out of here you demon brat!" The man snarled and lashed out. The nine year old took the blow in the shoulder and stumbled away with a cry. He recovered and didn't stop running. He knew better than to stick around when an adult got like that with him.

'Always the same cold eyes...' He reflected with a frown, a hollow pang of hurt in his chest. He'd stopped shedding tears by now, but it wasn't something you could just grow used to. The rest of his journey towards the academy passed without incident. He sprinted through streets and the occasional alley, those who bothered to look at him mirrored the same cold hateful look as his neighbor and most studiously ignored him. He plastered a smile on his face and returned the favor until the academy finally came into view, then the smile became genuine.

"Hey! Seiji!" The named boy paused in the flow of students into the building and halfheartedly returned Naruto's vigorous wave. The blond stopped short of his friend and clapped him on the shoulder with a laugh.

"Hey, did you get away from Iruka-sensei last night? Thanks for warning me!" Seiji looked at him blankly for a moment before his face lit up in understanding.

"Oh! Right..." He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Um, turns out it was just a bird."

"Huh?" Now it was Naruto's turn to blink blankly. "A bird?"

"Yup, a bird." The blond tilted his head.

"You thought a bird was Iruka-sensei?" He began scratching his head.

"Yes..." A note of impatience entered Seiji's voice. After a moment, Naruto started laughing. "What?"

"...You're not too bright, are you Seiji?"

"I'm the dumb one?" The dark haired boy muttered to himself in disbelief. Naruto patted the other boy on the shoulder roughly and guffawed loudly.

"Seiji," Both boys jumped slightly and twisted to look behind them. Takeshi looked at his brother dispassionately through half lidded eyes. "Don't you have class to go to?" Seiji's lips twisted into a grimace and he opened his mouth to retort but suddenly Naruto pointed and cried out.

"There you are Sasuke!" He jabbed his finger at the young boy walking behind Takeshi. A flurry of murmurings went through the crowd that had begun to gather around, mostly the young Uchiha's female classmates muttering things like: "What does that Naruto think he's doing?!" or "Naruto, that idiot!" and "Get away from Sasuke-kun!" Everyone ignored them, naturally. Sasuke returned Naruto's look with one of annoyance, which only made the blond angrier. All thoughts of the prank forgotten, he made a fist and pointed it at his proclaimed rival. "Listen up Teme, today's taijutsu sparring and I'm not going to lose to you, got it!" Sasuke walked towards the blond.

"Dobe," He muttered as he passed by into the academy building with hardly a glance. Naruto yelled in frustration and lunged after the Uchiha but soon yelped as Seiji unceremoniously yanked him back by the collar and landed him on the ground.

"What's with this guy?" Seiji sighed with exasperation. "Does he really have to pick the best student in his class as his personal rival?"

"He's a masochist. He chose you for a friend after all." Takeshi remarked dryly by way of explanation. "Let's move this inside, shall we?"

"Hmm," Seiji nodded noncommittally and headed for the academy, dragging a flailing Naruto on the ground by his collar.

"Hey, Seiji, cut that out! I can stan- ouch! What was that for?! Seiji! Seiji!"

"Kagura-chan!" Takeshi's attention was moved elsewhere by the familiar cry behind him as ten year old Yomi Isayama rushed to embrace the smaller girl. Two years had done little to change her. She was taller of course, she wore black mostly now, a knee length skirt and long sleeved blouse, but a select few could still see sadness and grief hidden deep in her violet eyes and her mask of good cheer.

"How are you Yomi-nēchan ?" Kagura, for her part, seemed either oblivious to or willfully ignorant of her friend's pain. She smiled up at the older girl and bobbed her head politely. Yomi ruffled her friend's hair, which she wore in a ponytail, and laughed.

"I'm fine, but what kind of greeting is that? Since when did you get so formal?" Yomi responded with mock indignation but Takeshi tuned them out. His eyes fell on his own siblings. Fury walked by with Hinata, the heiress' Hyuuga chaperone standing just at the entrance to the academy grounds. She gave her brother a surreptitious nod before disappearing into the open doors. Shiro appeared next, lagging behind a few yards.

"Takeshi-kun," He acknowledged without emotion.

"Shiro-kun," Takeshi returned the favor, but couldn't restrain himself entirely, a smirk crept across his face. "Getting enough rest?" He smiled at the memory of his younger brother's scowl all the way into his classroom.

When he took his seat he turned his thoughts to plans for the future. Only half listening to the instructor's lecture, he considered the issue of the priestesses' swordsmanship. He needed someone experienced that could gain the confidence of the Leaf so that they would be allowed to train the girls without suspicion. For that the instructor would have to be human with a decent reputation. He bit his lip as the chunin at the blackboard explained the history of the Third Great Shinobi War. The instructor's true loyalties would have to lie with the Horsemen of course.

"Takeshi-kun," Yomi nudged him and whispered, "You're spacing out again." He sat a little straighter and focused his eyes more firmly on the blackboard. His mind continued without pause. All his agents amongst humanity had been killed, but he had allies and they had agents... A plan formed and a smile tugged at his lips. His problems may yet be-

*Whush! Thunk!*

Something hard smacked into his shoulder, nearly throwing him from his seat, and suddenly he was drenched with something lukewarm and sticky, a foul stench overpowered his senses. He stared at the empty bucket at his feet in astonishment. The room had gone deathly silent.

"Takeshi-kun?" Yomi had her hands over her mouth in shock. A snigger broke out behind them, the pale boy whirled around with a stare of icy malice. The laughter died off quickly.

"Strife," He growled under his breath. Takeshi clenched a muddy fist and raised it in front of his face. "You're dead."

_**-Schoolyard missteps-**_

Today was a sparring day for several classes of the academy. Thus the yard was filled with clusters of students watching their respective class matches. Takeshi had joined the crowd after cleaning himself up but hardly noticed his class' fight, other than to note that Neji was winning as usual. He was more interested in the class on the other side of the yard, where he could see Seiji's black head cheering on whoever was doing the most damage. A grim frown creased his features and he stepped in his brother's direction. A hand caught his shoulder.

"Takeshi!" Yomi hissed quietly. "Don't you do what I think you're going to do!"

"Why not?" He matched her volume in a deadpan tone. "I'm just going to murder my cousin..." The girl shook her head in exasperation.

"It was just a joke, baka, don't overreact!" She punched him in the shoulder, but he was unfazed and unamused.

"He just needs to learn a little respect." He rolled up his sleeves. "And that is something I excel at." Without warning the girl threw her arm around his shoulder and forcibly redirected him towards their group, whispering in his ear as she went.

"Fine, fine! I can't stop you but don't make a scene in the middle of the academy, it reflects badly on all of us!" Takeshi tilted his head away from Yomi and raised an eyebrow at her.

"That's what you're worried about?" She offered him a coy smile in return.

"It was a dirty trick. I just don't want people thinking you beat your housemates to keep them in line." She patted him on the back and grinned. "That's my job!"

"Hayabusa Takeshi, Rock Lee, you're up!" They both jumped at the sound of the instructor's shout, but Yomi quickly smiled at him again.

"Well, go vent some of your anger at Lee then. He's one of the best at taijutsu in class, nearly as good as Neji!"

"If little else," The boy muttered, but made his way into the circle unenthusiastically. The infamous bushy brows himself leapt into the ring with enough energy to more than make up for his opponent's languor.

"Yosh!" He pointed his fist at Takeshi. "Today I finally get to face you! I will not lose, Takeshi-kun!"

"Your enthusiasm is exhausting," Takeshi slid into a combat stance with a hard edge to his tone. "...and the second most agitating thing I've had to deal with today." He struck out with the first punch, Lee deflected him with his forearm, and followed through with a flurry of punches and kicks.

"Too slow!" Takeshi's eyes widened as Lee caught his kick with one hand and struck forward with the other. The impact hit his chest with enough force to knock him off balance. His hand shot out to catch himself, leaving him wide open.

"You're done!" Lee shouted as he lunged with a raised fist. An ember of rage sparked to life in the Hayabusa. He would not be beaten by a boy incapable of ninjutsu. He would not be humiliated twice in a single day. They would pay and respect the power that was his.

"Hn." He kicked off the ground with both feet so that he was doing a one handed hand stand and delivered a kick with both feet straight up into the leaping student's chest.

"Umph!" The air was driven from Lee's chest instantly and the force of the blow drove him clear across the circle. Suddenly Takeshi was there beside him before he touched the ground, driving his fist straight down into the young student's stomach at the moment of impact with hard earth. The impact forced blood from Lee's mouth. The whole class grew silent.

"Damn..." Takeshi swore to himself under his breath when he realized what he had done. He had let his pride and petty anger rule him, causing a risk to their cover. He looked up and saw Yomi looking at him, her hands over her mouth in shock and a trace of horror in her eyes. A pang of hurt at the expression, mirrored by many of his classmates, echoed in his chest. Even the instructor was gaping like a fish for several moments before calling for the school academy medical ninja. Takeshi looked down at the boy at his feet, still struggling to gain breath through bloody lips. He bit his lip and offered his hand out to the other boy awkwardly.

"I... I..." To his surprise, Lee's hand shakily grabbed his. His wheezing voice grated out with considerable effort. "I... Will defeat you... you're now my... My eternal rival!" He gasped and jabbed his finger in Takeshi 's face. He promptly grew limp and sunk into unconsciousness just as the academy medical ninja arrived. The Hayabusa boy stepped back to let the medic work, then turned and headed back towards the academy building in silence, gritting his teeth in self-reproach.

"Takeshi..." Yomi muttered softly after him.

_**-Preparations make the best friends-**_

Seiji was happy as a clam. The academy was over for the day, he got to see Sasuke kick the snot out of Naruto, he'd managed to drive his arrogant bastard of a brother over the edge and now he was going to pick up an order of ninja tools. Of all his complaints about being forced to live a human life, the lack of guns was one of the biggest. The only projectiles anyone seemed to use in this blasted realm were either thrown or at least half powered by some derivative sorcery. Shiro, Takeshi, and even Maiko had their plans for replacement weapons they would use in their cover lives as Shinobi. He would have to improvise, however.

The blacksmith's workshop and home was in a quiet part of the village, with thankfully few people. There were of course other blacksmiths in town, but this one was one of the best, a little known master ideal for his purposes. He opened the shop door without pausing to knock and looked about. The smith obviously wasn't working, the room was dark and there was no red glow of a forge to be seen.

"Hey, anyone in here?" The boy hollered out as the door swung shut behind him and his eyes adjusted to the dark. There was immediately a loud bump and a muffled shrill exclamation of pain.

"Owe! Who the heck do you think you are?! Barging in here like that..." To Seiji's surprise, a young girl perhaps a year older than his current body popped out from behind the counter rubbing her head and glaring at him with a cross expression. Nonetheless, the boy was not so easily put off. He put his hands on his hips and returned her glare.

"I'm a paying customer, girly. So unless you can tell me where the blacksmith is, take a hike!" He didn't let himself even flinch when a shuriken thunked into the wood next to his head. The girl, arm still outstretched from throwing the weapon, now crouched on top of the counter and if possible looked even angrier.

"That was a warning, baka, now get out of my house!" Seiji opened his mouth to shout back at her, but an idea suddenly occurred to him and his mouth curled into a smirk. He yanked the shuriken from the door frame. 'This girl said it was a warning but I doubt she could have hit me if she tried.'

"So you like throwing things, huh?" He flicked his wrist and the metal star embedded itself in the wood of the counter at the girl's feet. The girl jumped in surprise. "So how about a contest, I win and you tell me where the blacksmith is." The girl eyed him suspiciously.

"A shuriken throwing contest?"

"Yep,"

"So what happens if I win?" The girl jumped down and looked him in the eye.

"Then I'll leave and never come back." He place his hand over his heart in mock seriousness and offered her another of his smirks. She frowned for a moment before a grin broke out on her face.

"Fine by me!" Abruptly she spun about and walked behind the counter and opened the backdoor. "Follow me, loser!" Irritated, Seiji followed after her.

"We'll just see about that you little tramp..." He mumbled under his breath as the girl led him through a storeroom and out the back of the building. The back lot was surprisingly spacious and it contained just about what he might expect from a blacksmith, wood and coal for fire, storage boxes for raw materials and finished products, but one anomaly. There were a series of training targets at the edge of the lot and a pile of shuriken and kunai on a table not far from the door. The girl had taken up her place at the table and smiled at him confidently.

"Well, get ready to lose baka." She held out a shuriken and indicated the target with her free hand. "You can go first." He snatched the shuriken out of her and and stepped up to throw with a sneer.

"I'll make you eat those words! Hah!" He threw the metal star twirling end over end through empty space before landing with a solid thunk in the dead center of the target. He turned to the girl and saw her frown. She was surprised by his skill. That would teach her to challenge him from here on out. He almost laughed when she picked up a shuriken and made to throw. Children were stubborn.

"Yes!" His eyes widened in shock as he saw her shuriken land on nearly the exact same spot as his own. 'What the hell?!'

"Grr, let's see if you can keep that up!" He snatched up a shuriken. She did the same and a fire came into her eyes.

"Bring it on!"

_**-Rushing through the air, twin blades-**_

Twenty minutes later, both Seiji and the girl were panting heavily. They had long since covered the targets with kunai and shuriken, moving on to randomly designated points in the yard. Now the entire lot was covered with pairs of ninja tools, each stuck in more or less exactly the same point as its partner.

"I... I didn't win?" The girl said in disbelief. Strife was having more or less the same thoughts. 'How could a human match me?' He stared at her in blatant shock.

"I'd say it's a tie, kids." Both children whirled towards the deep laughing voice. What Seiji saw was by far the biggest human he had ever seen, a veritable mountain of muscle towering at a height that could match War in his usual form. The late afternoon sunlight glinted off his bald head and almost comical round glasses as he smiled down at the two children.

"Otōsan?" The girl panted up at the man. Seiji did a double take.

"This is your father?!" He gaped for moment before realizing what that meant. "You're the blacksmith?" The man smiled amiably.

"Yes, Atsushi is my name, and you must be young Seiji-san, here to pick up your order of ninja tools." The man nodded sagely. "My apologies, I was picking up a shipment of iron or from a merchant and it took longer than I thought, though I must congratulate you. Nobody has ever matched Tenten's accuracy before!" He turned and indicated the doorway. "Please, come in."

"Hey, wait a sec!" Tenten sprung and waved her arms angrily. "You can't just invite this jerk into our house!"

"Settle down, dear." The large man made a calming gesture and chuckled. "He's a guest and a customer, don't be rude." With that, he ushered his frustrated daughter inside and Seiji followed, entirely unsure what to make of the situation.

"Um, about that order..." Seiji began, but a box suddenly materialized in front of him held by Atsushi.

"I have it right here, Seiji-san, but please, come! Sit! Eat" He indicated a table in the corner of the room the boy had not noticed before. Laid out on it was a steaming hot meal made for three. Seiji stared blankly.

"Uh, I shouldn't, really..."

"I insist!" The smith chuckled. "It's not every day such a skilled young ninja comes to my home." Finally, with a heavy sigh, Seiji gave in and sat down. He picked at his meal for a few moments before Atsushi spoke.

"So, Seiji-san, what is your goal as a shinobi?"

"My goal?" The boy stared blankly. "Can't say I really-"

"I'm going to become a great kunoichi, just like Tsunade-sama!" Tenten interjected with a raised utensil. The massive smith reached over and ruffled her hair affectionately to the girl's squeals of displeasure.

"...As she'll tell everyone that listens." He chuckled. "But Seiji-kun, it is important to have goals to drive a shinobi forward. Otherwise your resolve will falter in times of greatest need."

"Whatever you say, Atsushi-san, whatever you say." Seiji hurriedly assured him. He hadn't had a goal beyond doing his job as a Horseman and bothering his brother in millennia and he wasn't about to start now. "So, there is another reason I'm here," He drew a scroll from his pocket and presented it to the blacksmith, "A custom order."

"Oh?" Atsushi plucked the scroll from his grasp and peaked at its contents. "Oh my, it will take quite some time to get the materials for this, Seiji-san, not to mention the expense..." Tenten perked up and tried to lean over to see the scroll, unsuccessfully. Seiji waved the blacksmith off.

"I've got plenty of time and expense is no issue. Can you do it?" The blacksmith raised an eyebrow.

"Why, of course I can! I've forged for ninja almost three decades now, I've had my share of strange requests." He barked with a laugh. "You finish your food and don't worry about a thing Seiji-kun, you'll have your order even if it takes a few months." Tenten suddenly appeared over her father's shoulder.

"Let me see!" She lunged but her father lifted the scroll out of reach.

"I'll take my leave then." Seiji grinned and stood from the table. "We have a deal, Atsushi-san."

"What's he want? What's he want?!" The young weapons expert leapt with arms outstretched for the scroll, but her father's height was insurmountable. Seiji laughed at her impotent rage all the way back to the Uchiha compound.

_**-Home is where the heart is hurt-**_

Takeshi ducked the swipe and met the downward strike with his own wooden blade. Yomi stared at him from the other side of her blade with an unreadable frown. The Uchiha clan had many training dojos but this one was closest to the main house, where they lived and would sleep in several hours going by the setting sun. The ten year olds strained against one another's blades for several seconds before Takeshi had enough.

"I'll take the bait." He huffed. "You're strangely quiet, something on your mind?" Yomi responded by pushing off from him and taking a ready stance several meters away.

"What was that earlier today?" The girl breathed finally. "When you hit Lee, I mean." Her sparring partner edged forward with a heavy sigh.

"I lost my temper." He lunged and she parried, their swords meeting with a wooden crack. "That's all." The girl pursed her lips and struck at his side.

"It wasn't just that, I've never seen you move like that." Takeshi spun away from the blow in the nick of time. "And you weren't just angry, you were... Vicious, you really wanted someone to hurt."

"What do you want me to say?" There was a hint of exasperation in his voice Takeshi slashed upward. "I slipped up. What does it matter now?"

"It matters," She stepped back and dodged the slash cleanly, "Because it made me realize two things." She raised her arms to strike and he took on a defensive stance. "You've been holding back all this time and..." Takeshi parried her blow, Yomi swiped upward instantly. "...And I'm not sure I understand what sort of person you are." The tip of her practice sword rested lightly against his collar bone. The tip of his gently but firmly pressed against her sternum, a draw. Takeshi tilted his head at her.

"What?"

"One minute you're the tough but kind boy I know... The next..." She bit her lip and let her sword point drop. "The next you become something I don't recognize."

"Hn," Takeshi bowed his head and pulled back his sword, though he still kept it upright. "Yomi, when we first came to live here you told me you wanted to find those responsible for the attack that killed your family." The girl frowned and blinked at him in confusion.

"Yes..." She said uncertainly. Takeshi nodded.

"...And I promised to help you, but to do that you need to be strong." He tapped her sword with his own. "I meant what I said back then, take comfort in that if you need to. Until the day we find those responsible for your... Our families' deaths, you can trust my desire to help you. So raise your sword."

"...Alright," Yomi set her features in grim resolve. 'I know you don't want to talk about it... But I hope you know that I'm here, like you were there for me.' She raised her sword in front of her. "I'll win this time!"

"Not so fast!" Suddenly Takeshi was staring at his own empty hands. Seras materialized at the door to the dojo waving the boy's practice sword over her head triumphantly with a wide grin. "He's open! Get him, master!" Takeshi and Yomi openly gawked for several moments before his eyes narrowed in anger and she began to giggle.

"You..." The boy was tensed with rage. "Don't you understand that this is no game?" He glanced towards Yomi, who had dropped her ready stance. "Sometimes I wonder if you really still have the resolve to avenge your family." Suddenly his feet had left the ground as the Kindred pulled him right off his feet by the collar to stare at her fanged face twisted in indignation.

"Hey! There's no call for that you little-!"

"Release me," He hissed between his teeth. Then quietly, "Or your master will discover the sordid side of your kind." Seras hesitated, but her master's voice rang out before she could respond.

"Put him down, Seras." Yomi said quietly. "Takeshi-kun... My resolve remains strong. I promise you that." She spoke with a sobered melancholic tone. "But there are more things in my life than vengeance, right?"

"Then it won't be enough." All heads turned to the door to see the last of Konoha's Uchiha, their host, standing in the doorframe. Sasuke glanced between them. "You won't be strong enough unless you hold hate closest to you, live and breathe it every day." He nodded confidently. "Then you'll be strong enough."

All was silent for several moments. Then Yomi walked across the dojo to the boy, who was several inches shorter than her, and placed a hand on his head. She offered him a warm smile. "Wow, Sasuke-kun, you're such a grim kid aren't you?" Without waiting for a response, she grabbed his shoulder and spun him around to the door. "Well, I don't think we're going to get much else done here. How about we go prepare some dinner, hmmm?" With that she had propelled herself and the protesting Uchiha out the door. Takeshi pondered the boy's words for a time until Yomi called out.

"Takeshi-kun! It's your turn to cook!" He sighed and followed after her. He had let her draw with him and she was refusing to continue practicing, perhaps his methods were no more effective than War's. Yomi too would do better to have a human teacher, but perhaps Sasuke was partly right. Perhaps Yomi was hiding from her clan's death by ignoring the righteous fury that should have been coursing through her. Who knew? But he would need to do something...

_**-The future is now-**_

That night, after a tense dinner when Seiji returned home, Takeshi retrieved ink and a blank scroll. There was nothing particularly special about either item save what he wrote with them. The language was so old that only a handful of beings in all Creation could comprehend it, its script was so elaborate that even fewer could write it, but he knew the intended recipient too well to think it would give them trouble. When his message was finished, Takeshi exited his sleeping quarters and took a moment to stare at the night sky, the stars were glimmering brightly.

"So where do you think you're going?" He turned his eyes languidly to witness Seras emerge from the shadows. He returned his gaze skyward.

"No concern of yours, Cainite."

"One of these days you'll start using my name." She grumbled. The Kindred moved to stand next to him and glanced at the heavens. "Whatcha looking for?"

"He's arrived," Takeshi noted in answer and raised his arm. A great black shape swooped down and alighted upon his arm. It was a crow, a crow near twice the size of most others of his kind that carried a peculiar green aura around him. "Dust."

"That bloody bird!" Seras exclaimed and tightened her hands into fists. "I hate that thing." Takeshi raised an eyebrow at her.

"What did Dust ever do to you?" Seras humphed and crossed her arms.

"Well there was the matter of trying to gouge my eyes out when we first met to get my attention, that's put a sour note in our relationship."

"They would've grown back."

"That's not the point! It was bloody painful!" Takeshi sighed and began to walk away from his quarters towards the edge of the Uchiha compound. He reached into the kimono he had hastily put on for this excursion and drew out his scroll. "Hey! What are you up to?"

"If you must know, I'm getting your master a new teacher."

"Huh? Why are you so interested? Isn't the academy enough." She matched his pace and came up beside him.

"...It is important that Yomi and Kagura both become as powerful as they can quickly." Takeshi said after a moment. "I intend to make sure Yomi becomes even more powerful than you," Seras did a double take. "And who knows, maybe even me."

"This is all part of her destiny thing you keep talking about, huh?" Seras watched him tie the scroll to Dust's leg in silence, and then groaned. "So, what's my part in all this?" Takeshi gave her a calculated look.

"You're a balance on a scale." He explained. "You and Byakuei both: one creature fallen to demonic power and the other an angelic war beast." Seras blinked at him.

"Eh?! Are you saying I'm equivalent to a dog?!"

"I knew you wouldn't get it." He sighed in exasperation. He stopped at the gate to the compound and raised his arm. "You know where to go." He addressed the crow and with a whisper of wind it swept up on ebon wings. His eyes flickered to the right, checking for the presence he had begun to notice almost as soon as he had stepped outside. "I trust you've noticed our guests?"

"I can hear them." The Kindred closed her eyes. "Two on the southern corner of the compound... They're leaving."

"Trouble. Hear anything interesting?" Takeshi turned to head back to his room.

"Just one word, something called Root..."

* * *

**Author's Note: Happy 2013 everyone! Sorry this took so long to get out. I'm a college freshman you see, I was dealing with finals and the holidays and all manner of obligations. Very little time for writing. But it's here now.**

**I'd like to thank everyone who favorited this: ExtremelyAddictedReader, , Nero Angelo Sparda, and jirojackrabbit2. I'd also like to extend a very special thank you to Maverick Hunter Phoenix, the very first and so far only reviewer.**

**Once again, if you like this enough to favorite it, I'd ask just a few words in a review telling me why. It would mean the world to me.**

**On another note, I received a book of famous last words, eulogies, and ironies for Christmas, so I think I'm going to start closing my chapters with them. Thank you readers.**

**"As to me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination."**

**-Ambrose Bierce, after writing these lines in a letter home, the journalist Bierce was never seen again.**


	3. A Root in the Dark

**~Chapter Three: A Root in the Dark~**

* * *

The morning was quiet in the Uchiha compound. For the trio of Root operatives observing it, this was a mixed blessing. The lack of activity made it easy to track their marks and the quiet even made it a simple matter to make out their conversation. This worked both ways however. Obscuring activity functioned as smokescreen and camouflage to an experienced ninja. None was to be found in the isolated and gravely silent compound of the Uchiha.

Hyō saw one of his fellows hidden amongst tree branches sign to him. It was a sign language developed specifically for Root operations such as this, when avoiding detection was a priority and any noise was a risk. From this he understood that the targets of their observation were exiting the compound. Then before his very eyes they appeared. The young Uchiha heir walked beside the Isayama girl, the latter driving a largely one sided conversation with the former. Hyō looked beyond them, the other two would be-

He reacted before he'd realized what he had sensed. The Root shinobi pushed off his perch and landed in a roll on the ground, tantō drawn even as he heard the explosive splintering of the branch behind him.

"Oh good, I was a bit worried there I hadn't slowed down enough for you to dodge." Hyō's eyes darted to the source of the playful voice and froze. That should not have happened. Root operative were deadened to emotion, it was a core aspect of their training. Even so, his pulse quickened and a primal shudder ran through him in what even he recognized as fear at the sight of those white fangs and crimson eyes staring at him with disdain.

The shinobi calmed his mind as best he could and tried to evaluate the situation objectively. The voluptuous woman before him was not dressed for battle, though that belied her true strength if the splinters of wood at her feet were any indication, in a black kimono with a crimson floral pattern cut mid-thigh, black boots and black leather gloves. It was beside the point, he realized, he was distracting himself from what he knew to be true by the fangs alone. He didn't need to see the white kanji on the back of her left glove. This was Seras Victoria, the demonic servant of Yomi Isayama.

"I'm only going to say this once before I start getting violent," She cracked her knuckles. Hyō saw the other Root agents descending from their perches and gestured for them to hold position. "I know you've been watching the house and I don't really care why," She bared her fangs. "But consider this a warning, if you ever try to spy on Yomi-sama again, it'll be the last mistake you'll ever make."

Hyō felt it again, a wave of that oldest and most powerful of human emotions. His mouth went dry and he clenched his fists to quell an uncontrollable shaking in his hands. Then he was himself again. The Root ANBU operative knew when to stand his ground and when it was best to flee. With a slight nod at his fellows, Hyō turned and leapt away from the woman. They followed his example. Lord Danzou would be displeased to know that further observation was untenable.

_**-All is forgotten, not forgiven-**_

"Seiji," The boy heard his brother call to him just loud enough to tell him it was important but quiet enough not to alert Yomi or Sasuke as the duo walked ahead of them. Seiji gritted his teeth and did not turn, but he did slow his pace. Soon enough, Takeshi was walking beside him.

"How's the gutter smell treating you?" The younger Horseman quipped with a smirk.

"The compound was under surveillance last night." Takeshi stated as if his brother had not spoken at all. He didn't even turn his head to look at his brother. Seiji frowned in annoyance and glared out of the corner of his eye.

"...Are you waiting for me to swear vengeance?" Takeshi breathed dismissively. "Or will focus for once?" The younger boy grit his teeth.

"Fine," He forced out the word. "What's so special about that? ANBU watches the place day and night."

"Not within the walls." Takeshi turned and closed the gate of the compound behind them. "ANBU has never gone that far." The younger brother huffed and crossed his arms.

"So? What were you doing out there anyway?"

"I was sending a Dust on an errand." The elder stated nonchalantly as he turned and walked away from the compound. Seiji starred after him with his jaw hanging open.

"They saw you with Dust? And you don't think that could be a problem?!"

"I gave the Hayabusa a summoning contract for crows a century ago." Takeshi shrugged as his brother caught up with him. "I retrieved it from the compound, if anyone asks where Dust came from they'll see 'Hayabusa Takeshi' written on that scroll."

"And if they ask what you were doing with Dust?"

"I'll tell them the wretched bird needed some exercise." He waved his hand dismissively. "It isn't an issue, these aren't ANBU. They're something else, something that has decided to take an interest in us."

"How do you know that?" His brother grumbled accusingly.

"I know that they can't be allowed to interfere." For the first time, the older boy turned his head and looked at Seiji out of the corner of his eye. "I need you prepared."

"Drama queen..."

_**-From the morning arises a new beginning-**_

"Shiro-kun! Get out here! We're late as it is!"

"Ugh," Shiro appeared in the doorway of their little house still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Even after two years he had yet to get used to the sleeping patterns his young form required. He blinked until he could clearly see the courtyard, where his sister stood with her hands on her hips and a disapproving frown.

"I'm awake." He growled, ill tempered. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he made his way into the courtyard and accepted his book bag from Maiko's hand. "How do humans get anything done with such inefficient bodies?"

"They don't try to stay awake half the night training in the dark." Maiko snapped with a half serious punch to his shoulder. "You're going to have to adapt eventually." Shiro scowled at his wine haired sister and considered responding with a more than half serious punch of his own but restrained the impulse.

"You are far too bold, _cousin_." He shouldered his bag and promptly began a march towards the entrance of the compound.

"...Um, excuse me?" Both siblings whipped their heads around toward that nervous voice. Before them stood a member of the Hyuuga clan going by his pale eyes. He wore the clan's customary pale colors for a shirt, but black pants and a jonin's green vest. A nervous smile adorned his face and he seemed to be restraining the urge to scratch his head sheepishly.

"Who are you?" Shiro asked flatly.

"Oh," The jonin blinked at his bluntness. "My name is Kenji and, uh, I've been appointed your caretaker." Now he really did scratch the back of his head sheepishly. The sibling horseman stared at him impassively. Then Maiko unslung her backpack and walked up to the jonin.

"Okay, here you go." She abruptly tossed her bag up at him. He fumbled it in surprise and barely caught hold of it before it fell to the ground.

"Hey!"

"Take this," Shiro lopped his own bag into Kenji's arms.

"W-wait a second!" Kenji stammered, dumbfounded. "This isn't-"

"You're our caretaker, so make yourself useful." Shiro was already more than half way to the front gate. Kenji's thoughts were a mire of confusion. He had seen as many bizarre situations as any shinobi and fought demons to boot, but children were a new frontier for him.

"He is not a babysitter," Maiko whispered quietly when she caught up to her brother.

"Plainly..."

"Your imprudence brought this upon us," Maiko sniffed and fixed her eyes on the street ahead. "This could be a problem."

"It won't," Shiro glanced over his shoulder at the jonin now following them with a stupefied expression. "I won't let it. They know little."

"They only need to know enough," His sister shook her head with a sigh. "Enough to know we are more than normal children and watch us. Our movements will be restricted and our duty much more difficult to fulfill."

"Listing the consequences gets us nowhere," The white haired boy pointedly looked away from her. Maiko gritted her teeth.

"Perhaps if you heeded them for once-"

"Rrah!" A white blur darted before them and sunk sharp teeth into the flesh of Shiro's ankle. The boy tumbled forward with a loud grunt, more in surprise than pain.

"Byakuei! No!" They heard Kagura before she came into sight, sprinting out of breath. "Let go!" The little terror relaxed its jaw and backed off from Shiro, but bared its teeth at him with a growl. The white wolf was no larger than a puppy, though Shiro knew well it was a deceptive, and several thin chains emerged from its back. The chains where as much specter as reality for they curled through the air to the beast's mistress, Kagura, and disappeared into her back heedless of her clothes and without leaving so much as a blemish on her flesh. Her back, however, was nobody's concern at the moment. She rushed to her friend in a panic and scooped up the spirit beast with one arm and placing her free hand on Shiro's ankle. "Are you okay?!"

"I'm fine," Shiro stood and dusted himself off, ignoring the hand Kagura offered him. "The skin wasn't even broken." Maiko put a hand to her mouth to restrain a giggle. The boy probably didn't realize it, but he was blushing in embarrassment.

"I'm so so sorry." Kagura quailed and hugged Byakuei closer to her chest. He began to pant and paw at her grip like he was having trouble breathing. "I don't know why he doesn't like you so much."

"He never has..." Shiro and the wolf met gazes. The boy's eyes narrowed and the beast began to growl. The girl pouted at her white haired friends.

"Byakuei, you need a time out mister!" The spirit beast craned its neck to look at her and whined plaintively. Nonetheless, when she dropped him he padded behind her and leapt up into her back, where he promptly vanished without a trace along with the chain connecting them.

"Well, now that the drama is done..." Maiko interrupted and grabbed the shoulders of both younger children. "We're late!"

"Oh no..." Some meters back, Kenji muttered to himself despairingly. "What have I gotten myself into..."

_**-The roots dig into the dark, not knowing what they touch-**_

"Their routine changes little from day to day, Danzou-sama." The private chambers of Shimura Danzou were never brightly lit. In fact he rarely had more than a single candle burning next to him, thus the speaker was little more than a silhouette. Danzou knew it to be Hyō, one of his most gifted stealth operatives.

"..." He observed the photographs in front of him. The life of the Uchiha heir and his housemates was on display, leaving the compound, returning, at the academy, at training grounds, even the rare festival gathering and restaurant. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but these told Danzou precious little. He frowned.

"They attend the academy by day and return to their compound soon after, though the Isayama girl and the Hayabusa occasionally visit with the Hyuuga clan wards or play with other children." Danzou's frown deepened.

"I have those reports," He turned his one visible eye on the silhouette. "Tell me what you have seen since you began observation within the compound." There was a noticeable pause. Danzou did not like that, not one bit. The pause suggested the operative was hesitant to report something, a failure. It also indicated a blemish in their otherwise perfect role as shinobi tools.

"We observed Hayabusa Takeshi making use of a summoning jutsu, a crow." Hyō finally said. "But Isayama Yomi's creature, Seras Victoria, detected us and ran us out of the compound this morning. Further observation may not be possible."

"I will determine that." Danzou stated flatly. He knew Hyō was probably right. The Isayama slave was an enigma at best, though the mysterious disappearances of criminals and in a radius of the Uchiha compound pointed to something more sinister. For all her mystery, she was not his interest. "Did you intercept Takeshi's summoned beast? Were there any other suspicious actions?"

"No, Danzou-sama." Hyō bowed his head. Danzou did not react. In truth that was the answer he had expected. The Hayabusa boy had done well to hide his true talents. It was only the incident at the academy that landed another student in the infirmary that had confirmed Danzou's suspicions. The boy had been holding back for two years, but why? Regardless, such talent could be put to good use. Being family, it was likely his siblings possessed similar potential.

"There are two ways to handle such... able children." Danzou considered. "Raise our guard... Or draw them in closer."

"Danzou-sama?" Hyō tilted his head at the leader of Root.

"Tell me Hyō, which of the children would you consider a candidate for Root recruitment?"

"...Takeshi we know has been hiding his abilities for sure." Hyō hesitated only for a moment before he dispassionately spoke his thoughts. "But his motives are the most in question, given his secretive behavior." Danzou turned his face to the candle and closed his eyes, considering. "The Hyuuga wards are too well watched within the clan itself, approaching them much less training them would be difficult to do discretely."

"That leaves Hayabusa Seija and the Isayama girl." Danzou opened his eye and stared at the flame. "Her servant would make her useful... But it seems the servant herself would make recruitment next to impossible."

"Then..."

"Hyō," The Root leader turned his gaze on his subordinate. "I have a mission for you."

_**-A philosophical discussion over lunch-**_

"Naruto, that's inhuman." Seiji deadpanned as the blonde veritably inhaled his seventh bowl of ramen. They had come to Ichiraku ramen for lunch as they usually did and as usual Seiji had lost most of his appetite watching Naruto devour what by all rights should have been several times his stomach's volume in ramen.

"What *slurp* do you mean?" Naruto's face was practically buried in the bowl. Seiji groaned and rubbed his forehead.

"Why do I hang out with you again?" Naruto picked up his bowl to slurp down what was left and put it back down hard with an exhale of satisfaction. He looked at Seiji with his trademark grin.

"It's because of all the pranks! Duh, you love them!" He stood up on his stool and put his hands on his hips. "And one day I'm going to be Hokage, believe it! That's my dream!" Ayame giggled behind the counter. Her father, the proprietor, smiled warmly at Naruto's jubilance.

"Uh huh, sure." The dark haired boy rolled his eyes and pushed his bowl away. "I'll believe it the day War cracks a smile and Death wears a pink dress..." He muttered under his breath.

"Huh? What was that!?" The blonde whirled on him with a raised fist. "Hey! You don't think I can become Hokage!?" Seiji blinked.

"Well duh, you do realize that you're the dead last right?" Naruto gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. "And I don't buy into this 'dream' business..." Seiji took a breath. "I hate people that live in their future goals..."

"Well forget it!" Naruto hit his palm with his fist. "We may be friends but I'm not just going to let you put down my dream and get away with it!" He hopped down from his stool and brought up his fists. "Come on! I'll show you!" Bemused, Seiji put the money for his meal on the counter and dropped to the ground. He looked at Nauto without facing him and a close lipped smirk crept across his face.

"If that's what you want, I'll curb your ego a bit." He raised his hand and beckoned the blonde. "Take your best shot."

"Yaah!" Naruto wasted no time in charging with fist raised high. Seiji tensed and then sidestepped, grabbing the blonde's wrist as he past and pulling. Naruto tumbled head over heels with a yelp. Seiji grinned.

"So sorry, Hokage-sama, I thought you'd dodge that." He mocked with a bow. Naruto leapt to his feet, grinding his teeth in rage. The blonde lunged with another shout. Seiji just kept smiling and leaned away from the punch, dodging it without moving his feet. Suddenly Seiji felt a hard impact in his stomach and stared in disbelief at Naruto's knee planted in his chest. His expression fell back into a smirk. 'A diversion? I didn't think this airhead had it in him. Still...' He grabbed Naruto's arm and waistline, flipping the blonde over his head as they both fell. The blonde's head impacted the ground with a solid thunk. 'People can't live their lives with their heads in the future, always weighing and calculating, the last thing I want is for you to turn out like him...'

"Se... Seiji..." Naruto managed as he shakily got to his feet. Seiji sighed and picked himself up off the ground. The blonde was bleeding from a cut at his hairline. It wasn't a big cut but head wounds bleed more than most. Seiji heard Ayame gasp in concern but paid no mind. "Now you've done it," Naruto stuck out a finger in Seiji's direction. "Now witness the ultimate technique I've been perfecting!"

"Eh?" Seiji tilted his head as the blonde made a shinobi hand seal.

"Oiroke no jutsu!" Seiji's jaw dropped as the puff of white smoke cleared. Then he pointed and started to laugh. He laughed so hard he was clutching his chest and doubling over. Naruto, or the nude voluptuous female he had just transformed into, blinked.

"Why aren't you falling over? This works on Ojī-san all the time..." In a puff of smoke he was himself again, scratching his head in confusion.

"Naruto..." Both boys turned their heads back to Ramen shop. Ayame was grimacing with a wrathful look in her eye and a metal ladle clutched in her fist. Naruto began sweating bullets.

"I was just going to say, you probably shouldn't use that technique around women." Seiji said with a chipper tone. "...I think I'll leave you to reap what you sow." With that, the dark haired boy turned on his heel and began down the street at a nonchalant pace.

"Hey! You can't just abandon me like that! Whoa! Ayame-nēchan, n-no need for that, right? Ouch!"

_**-The shadows reach out-**_

Naruto was long out of sight when Seiji's grin started to slip. He gave up the effort and allowed himself to frown. He sighed and folded his arms behind his head.

"Dreams are all well and good, but that's all they are, dreams." He reflected under his breath as his eyes lazily tracked a distant bird across the sky. "I've seen what can happen when someone lives their life to achieve one goal at any cost..." Even Absalom had fought for an aspiration greater than himself, for the Nephilim. Look where that got him. Seiji shook his head and snorted at himself. Why was he comparing Naruto to Absalom? It was absurd. Naruto did not have the hatred or malice in him... But there was something, a certain strength of will that reminded Strife of the days he had spent listening to the first of his kind giving battle speeches as they laid waste to entire worlds. Such wills could be shortsighted or, he thought of Death, too farsighted for their own good.

"Hayabusa Seiji," The boy was jolted from his musings and came to a halt. He turned his head toward the voice. Seiji found himself staring down an alleyway. A skilled human eye could have picked out the black cloaked figure from the shadows. To Seiji, it was clear as day. He dropped his hands to his sides and glared coldly.

"I don't like mystery, so speak plainly." The man did not answer. He simply stared, waiting. Seiji sighed heavily and turned fully towards the alley. "Have it your way..." He began to walk out of the sun and into the shadow of the building. It was only when he had stepped into the alley fully that the man broke his silence.

"Hayabusa Seiji, what is it that you-" He was cut off as the boy suddenly sprung forward, a kunai appearing in his hand. The knife tore through fabric as the man whirled away. Seiji stood up straight and pointed his kunai at the cloaked man with a smirk.

"What? Don't want to play?" Now the man's hood had fallen and Seiji could see a porcelain mask covering his face.

"I'm not here to attack you; I'm here to make you an offer." The masked man's voice was calm and unwavering. Seiji scowled in annoyance. "There is an organization that serves as the hidden root of this village, its hand in the dark..."

"And I care… why? I'm not the sort of person you can impress with secrecy."

"Then perhaps I can offer you something that will impress you. The members of this organization receive some of the most advanced training this village has to offer..." Seiji relaxed his stance and rubbed his forehead with a sigh.

"You want to make me a member? I say again… why?" The cloaked man was as motionless as a statue.

"You have great skill for your age, Seiji, and even greater potential. Your situation with your family makes you an unusual recruit... But you would receive the same level of training as the rest." The boy opened his mouth but the man raised a hand to silence him. "I do not need your answer now. I will find you again in three days for your decision." And with that the man faded into the shadows, no doubt escaping through one of myriad hidden paths. Seiji hid his kunai back up his sleeve and walked back out into the street. He looked up into the sky with a bemused expression.

"Well, well, I'd wager there are some interesting times ahead."

_**-The love of a sister-**_

"That was a great meal, Yomi-nēchan." Kagura smiled warmly up at her surrogate sister. Yomi wrapped her arm around the younger girl's shoulders and smiled back. They were walking back from lunch, a home cooked meal courtesy of Yomi and the Uchiha compound pantry.

"Thanks! Cooking is something you have to pick up when you live with a bunch of kids, I guess." She stifled a giggle with her free hand. "Especially considering what happens when Sasuke or Seiji tries to cook!"

"What's it like?" Kagura tilted her head.

"Hmm? Their cooking?"

"No, I mean living with Takeshi-kun and the others. I'm just wondering since they don't always seem to get along..." She looked down at her feet awkwardly. Yomi bit her lip in thought.

"When you put it that way... Takeshi-kun and Seiji-kun fight a bit, well, Seiji fights and Takeshi mostly stonewalls him. Sasuke is quiet and broody, but I think he likes having us around in his own way, even if it just means not being alone." A smile crept across her face. "Seras really annoys him though."

"Sounds sort of unpleasant." Kagura offered with a frown. "So much fighting..."

"Oh no! We get along." Yomi interjected hurriedly. "Takeshi-kun is a bit harsh but he looks out for us. Even Seiji pitches in when it matters and Seras just likes to tease."

"And you take care of everyone?" Yomi smiled at the question.

"Yup! You too, of course, Kagura-chan."

"You're like a family then," The younger girl perked up and looked Yomi in the eye. "You're the mom, Takeshi's the dad, and everyone else is the unruly children." Yomi's smile faltered.

"Uh, I guess..." Her face was turning redder with each passing moment. Kagura giggled. "Um, anyway! So what's life like with the Hyuuga? They always seem stuffy."

"Oh, it's fine." She looked away distractedly. Yomi pouted and squeezed her friend's shoulder.

"Oh come on! Don't be..." She trailed off when Kagura winced. "What's wrong?" The older girl tugged at her friend's shirt. Kagura pulled away from her the touch anxiously.

"It's not-"

"These are bruises!" Yomi pulled the collar of the shirt aside to reveal the faded black and blue of an old bruise on her friend's shoulder. "What's going on, Kagura-chan?!" She whirled on Kagura with a look of fierce care in her eyes.

"It's not what you think!" She said hurriedly. "It's just..."

"Just what?! If they've been hurting you, I'll-"

"These are from training!" She pushed aside Yomi's arm. "I train very hard with Shiro and Hanabi... But I don't win much." Kagura withdrew into herself and folded her arms. "Please don't be angry!" The older girl's gaze softened. She placed a hand on her friend's head.

"Don't worry about it. I'm not angry at you..." She smiled. The she abruptly spun around with a fist raised and a fire in her eyes. "Now I'm going to give those two a piece of my mind!"

"Wait!" Kagura tried to grab her but within seconds Yomi had kicked up quite a dust cloud. "Oh no..."

_**-Nervousness, confusion, and other things-**_

Hanabi liked her life free of complication. She trained diligently at home and at the academy. She honored her clan and her father. She dedicated herself to succeeding where her sister so often failed. She was the pride of the main house and she wouldn't let anyone change that. Why then, did the sight of Shiro, the only person patiently and stoically waiting for lunch hour to end at the academy entrance, leave her face hot and tongue tied?

"Hanabi-sama." Shiro offered a terse nod of acknowledgment to her presence. Somehow he managed to be respectful without fawning or being particularly reverent, and not granting her a single clue as to what he thought of her. She took a steadying breath. She had to at least try.

"Shiro-kun," Hanabi forced out. "Um, uh, how are you?" Immediately she berated herself. This was not the start she was hoping for.

"Fine," Shiro grunted. She waited a moment but he said nothing.

"So... H-how's training going?" She blurted out the first subject that sprung to mind.

"Well." He turned his head to look at her and added with a note of impatience, "Is something wrong?"

"Oh? No! Nothing's wrong, Shiro-kun..." Her face was getting hot again. She mentally ran through every prayer and mantra she had ever heard that he would not notice. He examined her with his typical piercing gaze for several moment, which certainly didn't help her calm down.

"Is this about my beating you?" He said at last. For a moment she had no idea what he was talking about, the spar of yesterday being far from her mind. He took her hesitation as affirmation. "I can give you advice, if you wish, Hanabi-sama."

"Um, okay..." Hanabi was so flummoxed by the turn of the conversation that it was all she could do to say that much. Shiro nodded at her.

"First of all, your stance becomes too wide just after an attack." His voice took on the tone of a seasoned shinobi lecturing a genin. "You recover quickly enough for most fighters your age, but you need to be faster if you wish to defeat me."

"You say that like you're older than me..." The Hyuuga heiress mumbled.

"I am older than-" Shiro cut himself off. A scowl flashed across his face and he looked away. Hanabi's thoughts raced with panic, wondering what she had done to upset him. "More to the heart of the matter," Shiro spoke after a time. "You're just too small and light to properly hurt me in hand to hand combat."

"But the Gentle Fist..." She began in protest. Embarrassment momentarily forgotten, Hanabi was smarting at his comment on her size. He was a handful of inches a taller than she at most, even if he did have a broader frame.

"Doesn't rely on physical strength, I know." Shiro's tone was dry and tired. He was regaled with the virtues of the Gentle Fist on a daily basis. "But it does rely on the strength of its user's chakra. Yours is not yet enough." Hanabi fumed for a several silent moments before she remembered why she had started the conversation in the first place. "I will say that you have potential, Hanabi-sama." Her anger became mortification at his words, but she could see other children approaching the school. 'Perhaps I could ask to meet him for lunch some time, try and salvage this...'

"Uh, Shiro-kun, would you like to-" A blunt impact on the top of her head brought her up short as she yelped in pain. She heard Shiro grunt as his head was forced forward as well. They turned as one to see Yomi Isayama frowning fiercely at them with upraised fists.

"What's the big idea, huh?!" She lifted her clenched fists in the air as if to bonk them both over the head again. "Beating up my friend!?" Shiro and Hanabi were silent, the latter being struck dumb by the suddenness of the outburst and the former merely quirking an eyebrow at Yomi.

"I'm sorry, sorry, sorry!" Both turned to see Kagura running up behind her friend with ragged breath. "I *pant* couldn't *pant* stop her..." She doubled over with her hands on her knees trying to regain her breath.

"Don't try and cover for them, Kagura. Nobody beats up my friends and gets away with it!" She punched her open palm. "Alright! I've seen the bruises, so what do you two have to say for yourselves?" Hanabi and Shiro glanced at each other, more confusion than surprise.

"It was just training," Hanabi shrugged.

"Training doesn't come without pain." Shiro added. That seemed to set something off inside the Isayama girl. She gritted her teeth and raised her fist with a low growl.

"That's it! I'm gonna-"

"Enough!" A hand reached out and caught Yomi's fist midflight.

"I-Iruka-sensei," Yomi stuttered in surprise. The chuunin frowned at her.

"It's time for class, Isayama-san, and I won't have brawls breaking out on the academy doorstep! This is your first warning!" With that he released her arm and gave her a hard stare until she began walking into the building. Yomi bit her lip and turned around with a shaking fist.

"This isn't over, you hear me?!" Then she was gone before Iruka could speak a word. He sighed and turned to the younger children.

"Are you alright?" Both Shiro and Hanabi nodded affirmatively. Kagura jumped forward and began to babble.

"She wouldn't have really hurt them! I mean, she was just upset because I got lots of bruises training with them, Yomi was only worried!" She looked ready to go on for a while longer but War's voice cut her off with a dire tone, directed more towards himself than the rest of them.

"I wouldn't be so sure, the strength of Yomi's emotions is her strength and weakness. It can lead her to do all manner of reckless things..." The other three stared openly at the boy until he began to shift uncomfortably.

"...You're kind of a morbid kid, aren't you?" Iruka finally said. Shiro face palmed with a sigh and trudged down the hall to class.

_**-Night makes for fateful meetings-**_

Seiji made no hurry to get home that day. He wandered the village, perusing shops and shoplifting petty items from a few of them. When darkness fell he went to Ichiraku's for dinner, Naruto had the good sense to be nowhere near the place for a while. When he finally arrived at the Uchiha compound, it was nearing midnight and the only light left in their secluded portion of the village was that of the moon. Seras let him inside and he meandered about the compound until he found who he was looking for.

"So, Takeshi-kun, what was this new threat you were so worked up about this morning?" Takeshi was sitting on the edge of a roof. His black attire and raven tresses made him near invisible against the blackness of the night but for where the blue-silver light of the moon touched the delicate features of his pale face.

"A concerned party by the name of Root." Death did not raise his eyes from his lap. From the ground, Seiji could see a knife in his brother's right hand and something white that had to be a carving material by the scratching sound in his left. Seiji waited for a few moments for his brother to continue, or to throw down a disdainful look and chastise him for being home so late. When Death failed to so much as look up from his work, the younger horseman became uneasy.

"What's with you? You wanted to talk about this earlier! Not even a lecture about walking alone on the streets at night blowing our cover?" He blurted out impatiently. An ember of annoyed anger began to burn in his chest. "Did you finally get too proud to speak to your own _brother_ now?"

"Is that what you want?" Death's voice was perfectly level, dispassionate with a hint of the gravelly quality it had in his normal form. His hazel eyes, strangely luminous in the moonlight, flicked up to take in his brother. "To be lectured like a child?"

"_What_?" Seiji filled the word with bile. The older Nephilim's calm demeanor and clear disdain was feeding the ember of his anger into a crackling flame. Death's eyes returned to his lap.

"When we took on the bodies of children, it was not my intent that we would begin acting like them, save as deception." He discarded several wood shavings and then resumed carving. "You disappoint me."

"Screw your disappointment!" Seiji hissed. The flame had become a great fire. His body fairly trembled with indignation. "_I don't care_."

"That is the issue." Death locked eyes with him. "You don't care and you don't listen even to advice given for your benefit. You're incorrigible, Strife, and irresponsible."

"_I don't care_!" Strife's rage exploded. "You Firstborn _fool_! You sit on your pedestal and judge all Creation as it fits into _Death's_ design, _Death's_ precious Balance!" He spat. "Your word is law because you make it for the good of the Balance and _woe_ to any that may suffer because of your choice! _Worse_ still to any that refuses you!" Seiji pressed his clenched fist to his chest. "_I refuse you_!"

The silence that followed Seiji's outburst was deafening. Seiji, his rage if not spent at least vented, was breathing heavily. After a time, Death raised his eyes.

"Do you want to try that again? I don't think the neighbors heard you that time." He said dryly. Seiji gritted his teeth and an inarticulate growl slipped from his throat.

"Will you make a joke of Root too? Is that your solution for everything these days?" The younger horseman hissed.

"It will be taken care of." Death dropped his eyes down to his work. The message was clearly given. The conversation was ended.

"Not all your plans will end smoothly." Seiji left those dark words in his wake as he turned towards the main house. The eldest Nephilim's eyes did not rise for some minutes, not until his brother was long out of earshot. Then he sighed, a sigh filled with the pain of an old heavy heart.

"It will be taken care of," He lifted his work up to the moonlight. The moon's luminous beams revealed a pale mask, skull shaped with no mouth. "And all will be... well"

_**-The reaper rarely visits twice-**_

Sarutobi Hiruzen had better senses than most shinobi and even most Kage. Even as the passage of years and infrequent use had dulled them somewhat, they continued to be worthy of a Hokage. It was only by virtue of these senses and any cautious shinobi's habit of being a light sleeper that woke him this night. He did not open his eyes at first. He could feel a presence, a strange chakra. It was so well hidden that even he barely caught it, like a shadow on a moonless night.

"I'm impressed that you can detect me at all," The voice caught Hiruzen off guard, deep and gravelly. He could perceive a vague inkling of its owner's chakra signature, something dark and sinister. "Few can when I do not wish to be, but my senses are keener than yours. Sit up, Hokage-sama, there is a matter we must discuss." At first the Sandaime was hesitant, but saw little point in continuing the charade. One hand poised to snatch up the kunai on his bedside table and the other prepared to remove the kunai hidden up his sleeve, the Hokage of Konoha sat up in bed.

"Have you killed my ANBU?" Naturally, the Hokage's residence had many elite guards. Hiruzen understood the necessity, but the idea of good shinobi dying because someone may want him dead sickened him, his feelings towards those who would do such a thing, doubly so.

"One will have a headache; the others think nothing is wrong at all." The Hokage tried to pinpoint the source of the voice, but it seemed to come from every shadow and corner. "I need you to tell me about Root."

"Root?" The Hokage's mind was already running a mile a minute trying to come up with a motive. He doubted this was an assassination at this point, but what could he want to do with Root? How did he even know about it? "I had Root disbanded years ago, Root is defunct." The first part was true, the other he was less certain off. All sorts of reports indicated unusual activity ongoing beneath the village and Danzou always had suspiciously hard to come by information.

"What is Root? Some sort of special force? Whatever they may be I can assure you that they are still operating." Hiruzen blinked in surprise, not at the news that Root was still operating, but that his would be assailant would go to this trouble without knowing what Root actually was. Regardless, the Sandaime would not be telling anything to this man.

"You waste your time," He spoke loud enough to be heard, but lower than would attract his guards. There was no need to antagonize his infiltrator just yet. "I can tell you nothing of Root."

"You can... But I can see your tongue is set. So let me reveal some facts that may loosen it in the future before I depart." The voice seemed to shift position but for the life of him the Hokage could not pinpoint where it was coming from. "Root has targeted the orphans of Hayabusa, Isayama and Tsuchimiya."

"How do you know of this, presuming you tell the truth?" Hiruzen's eyes narrowed in submission.

"Regardless of what you believe, Hokage-sama, know that I am a friend of Konohagakure." The voice became fainter. "We'll be in touch..." Hiruzen turned towards the sound of a window opening and caught an eyeful of him. A moment later he was gone. The ANBU squad he had sent minutes later scoured the area for any sign of him could find not trace. For some reason it was the assailant's mask that stuck most in his memory. The dark cold gaze and featureless skull mask belonging to a mere child were a deliberate show. This man wanted him be certain he was not imagining voices in the dark, when he could have been perfectly anonymous. All Hiruzen knew for certain was that he was going to take a closer look at Root. A garden could have many vipers, after all.

* * *

**Author's Note: Well... This was shorter and took much longer than I thought or would have liked. I offer the usual excuses: college, exams, family obligations. With some additions. I really get stuck on action scenes, which is unfortunate considering my love of fairly action heavy fandoms. When I got to Seiji and Naruto's little scuffle, I completely blanked, inspiration fled. So I put it aside for awhile. That turned into a much longer while when THQ went under and the Darksiders developer went unsold. It was a big blow to my enthusiasm for this fic and the franchise, but here I am, recovered!**

**Oh well, I suppose I'll have to put some real thought into Fury and Strife's Wrath powers and second forms. Not to mention Horse names... Any ideas?**

**I want to thank everyone that answered my plea for reviews last chapter! Eipok - Thank you for your kind words! ChroniclerRegios - You're probably right on that last point. I will try not to let a dearth of reviews discourage me too much. Brad W - I responded to your questions in a PM, but still, thanks for the support! undead3 - Thanks for the words of praise! I aim to portray the Naruto universe as part of something that, in a not too distant future, can stand firm against the forces of Heaven and Hell. Grypinh the Moonfox - Well, happy to have your interest!**

**I extend the same request. New readers, drop by and tell me what you think in a review! Old readers, well, it would be very gratifying to me if you could drop in a word or two so that I know I still have your interest. Without further preamble:**

**"I do not have to forgive my enemies. I have had them all shot."**

**-Ramon Maria Narvaez, an aged dying spanish general's response to a priest asking him to forgive his enemies.**


	4. A Step Forward and A Glance Back

**~Chapter Four: A Step Forward and A Glance Back~**

* * *

_**-Evening frustration-**_

The sky was red and rapidly shifting to purple as the sun began its nightly dip below the horizon. War favored this time of day. The training grounds were all but deserted, allowing him to relax as he practiced his forms. It was also probably better for everyone that nobody saw him wielding the large metal cleaver, his own height in length and a third as wide, as if it were a toothpick. The youngest of four held the sword up steadily behind him with one hand and focused. With a single furious movement and a cry he brought the blade over his head and slice down into the log before him. It sank halfway through the upright log before coming to a stop. War scowled.

"Such a weak body..." The horseman tried to pull the sword loose but it was stuck fast. Furrowing his brow, War took hold of the hilt with both hands and brace himself against the log with his foot. Again he pulled with all the strength he could muster, but even then the blade only moved a quarter inch. The horseman growled low in his throat and released his grip, taking several steps back and glowering at the sword. Not so long ago, he had ripped his cursed blade through demon skulls and torn off angel wings with his bare hands. Now here he stood, confounded by a piece of wood and a worthless hunk of metal. If the Creator was watching, he was having a laugh.

"Need help?" The horseman's head whipped about towards the village and saw a tall man of the Hyuuga clan with long dark hair and a jonin's vest. War quickly did his best to suppress his rage and slip back into Shiro. He knew this man, the new caretaker, but could not for the life of him recall his name.

"You... what is it you want?" Shiro huffed. The man offered a small smile and held up a hand in a peace gesture. He walked to the log and rested his hand on the sword hilt.

"Just thought I could help, Shiro-kun. Since I'm supposed to be looking after you, I thought I'd get to know you better." His grip tightened around the blade and with a grunt and the groaning of stressed wood the sword was free. "Huh. By the way, you are quite strong for your age." Shiro gasped in surprise. Even in this child form he had the strength of a very well built man. For this shinobi to pull it free so easily where he had failed...

"I was thinking that we could spar," The man offered him his sword. Shiro eyed him for a moment, then slowly took his weapon. For the first time he noticed a short blade at the jonin's waist, a tanto he believed it was called. "Well, if that's alright." The eight year old pursed his lips and glanced between the man's face and his sword. His suspicious nature fell short of his eldest brother's sheer paranoia, but he had been deceived enough times to be wary. Was this man as he appeared, simply trying to bond with the child under his care? Or was there some game of the main house at work?

"...Very well," Shiro finally replied. He turned on his heel without hesitation and walked away from the jonin. When he stood ten paces away, he turned back towards his opponent. The jonin took his weapon from his waist, but held by the middle still inside its sheathe. War gritted his teeth, insulted that he was being taken lightly. On some level he understood that the caretaker only saw an eight year old with an oversized blade, but did not particularly care. He gripped his sword in both hands.

"Okay then," The Hyuuga nodded and raised his sheathed blade. "Begin," War bristled inwardly. He did not need anyone to _tell_ him when to attack! He charged, dragging the blade through the air behind him. In two bounds he swung.

"Rrah!" The cleaver whistled through the air and met the jonin's weapon. Shiro's arms shuddered as his momentum came to a sudden abrupt hault against the raised sheath. He blinked in surprise. The man had not budged an inch. War's eyes narrowed. He hopped back and brought his sword around for another strike. This time the jonin leapt away from the blow and twisted on his heel to bring the hilt of his tanto down on Shiro's shoulder. It took all of War's child form speed to catch the blow on the flat of his blade. One of his hands flew free of the hilt and struck the jonin in the stomach. He grunted and took a step back, then leapt further away to put distance between them.

"You really are strong," The shinobi winced as he touched the area Shiro had hit. "That's going to bruise... But you seem angry."

"Are we fighting or talking?" Shiro grunted and hefted his blade. The jonin was undeterred.

"I'm serious... I'm just wondering if it has anything to do with your family's demise." The shinobi's easygoing attitude faded and he frowned. War wanted to continue fighting, but realized this was the real reason ninja had come. He was fishing for information. The horseman decided to play along.

"And if it does? Don't I have a right to feel enraged?" He fixed the jonin with an only half fake glare.

"You do," He nodded and relaxed his posture. "But becoming consumed by vengeance is a path that rarely ends well. There are other ways." War snorted. He stood straight and allowed his sword tip to hit the ground.

"You aren't here to spar."

"Apologies, but no," the jonin smiled and scratched the back of his head sheepishly, "I just believe I can help." Shiro felt his rage replaced by exasperation and heaved a sigh. The shinobi really was here only as a concerned guardian.

"You... What was your name?" The man sweat dropped.

"Wait, you'd forgotten my name this whole time?!"

"I don't remember that which does not interest me." The jonin heaved his own sigh of exasperation.

"...Hyuuga Kenji," He reintroduced himself. Shiro nodded.

"Kenji-san, I thank you for your unsolicited and misguided advice. I'm going home now." And so War walked past the jonin towards the village, ignoring Kenji's calls for him to wait.

'Hn, I have yet to meet a creature in all Creation that would turn down vengeance when it was within its grasp. Humans are no different.' Behind him, the last light of the sun disappeared over the horizon.

_**-Something artful, something dark-**_

Seiji yawned at the night sky. It took him a moment to remember why he was sleeping outside and why there was a root jabbing into his back, but it all came back shortly.

"Wake up," Strife groaned softly and sat upright on his branch. The speaker stood on another branch. He was a pale boy around Seiji's age. He had assumed he was unusually young for Root recruitment, but they had paired him up with this kid right off the bat. No names were exchanged, they were handed a scroll and sent into the ominous forest with the charming name.

"Seriously, nobody thought 'Forest of Death' was a little pretentious?" He groaned and stretched. The boy frowned at him.

"We should hurry," The horseman stared at him glumly for a few moments before standing and drawing a kunai.

"...You really do lack a personality, don't you? Fine." Seiji stepped off the branch and in moments they were leaping through the forest's massive trees. It was a training mission. That bothered Strife, but atleast it brought him to interesting places. They were to locate and retrieve two scrolls, their locations hinted at only vaguely. The first scroll had been in a cave on the opposite side of the forest. It would have been easy were the cave not also the dwelling of a centipede the size of house. Regardless, they had succeeded.

"You're losing focus," Pale boy noted. Seiji scowled. The kid was quite possibly the most boring person he had ever encountered. Everytime he did something unrelated to the mission the kid would get a confused look and call him out on it.

"Get a personality, kid-" Seiji began but the boy abruptly jumped past him. A great crash and splintering of wood boomed behind him. He caught a glance of a massive scaly pair of jaws before they sank back below the branches.

"Oh, giant alligators, _fantastic_." Seiji sighed to himself and abruptly leapt high up into the air as another pair of scaly jaws snapped up through the foliage. He stared down into the creature's gaping maw with a scowl. In a flash, three kunai with explosive tags were in his hand. "Get out of my way!" He cast the kunai down and push himself off of a nearby tree trunk. The alligator's head exploded in a shower of gore as he sped away. Then he was below the foliage.

"I've found the scroll." The pale boy stated emotionless lay as Seiji landed on the log beside him. The Hayabusa grit his teeth and stood up straight. They were in a swamp. The log sank ever so slightly into the boggy ground at their weight and the leviathan bodies of three alligators of mammoth proportions thrashed towards them through the muddy water, jaws snapping. Above it all, Seiji could see what the boy had mentioned: A scroll sitting securely in a carved out niche on a far tree.

"Well, hard part's over then." Seiji ground his teeth and drew a pair of kunai. He did a double take as the pale boy withdrew a brush and scroll out of his pack. "Are you kidding me?! This is hardly the time to be sketching, you-woah!" Both suddenly leapt away as the first pair of jaws tore into the log they had been standing on. To Seiji's surprise, the boy was painting even as he hurtled through the air and landed on a tree, sticking to the tree's side as if he had glue on his feet. _That tree walking thing_, Seiji thought as he caught a branch and hung from it, _Had better be the first thing they teach me..._ It dawned on the horseman that he was much closer to the scroll now. So close he could probably reach it in one leap, but the pale boy was in the opposite direction with the gators closing. Seiji bit his lip, "Damnit..." But fate took the matter out of his hands.

The boy abruptly held the scroll above his head and made a hand sign with his free hand. The ink exploded out of the scroll, taking the form of a great alligator even larger than the ones pursuing them. Seiji gaped as it set upon the scaly creatures.

"Okay, I didn't see that coming..." Refocusing, Seiji leapt through the air and grabbed the scroll in his outstretched hand. "Got it!" He whooped triumphantly as he landed in a crouch on a new log. He held his prize up before his eyes appraisingly, "This'd better be worth the trouble." And tucked it into his pack. He froze as a shadow came over him. Every instinct screamed danger to him but he didn't move. He grimaced and glanced back towards the boy, who had disappeared along with his drawn gator. _All flash and no substance, should have known it wouldn't last long_...

He grimaced up at the toothy jaws above him and a fit of rage came over him. Had Death not bound his powers and snubbed him he would not be in this situation. Had Death not been so absorbed in his own web, maybe he could see what Strife could do. Strife ground his teeth and found himself drawing on his power, not his stolen human chakra, but something deeper and fundamental to him. For an instant, all the world ceased to be for Strife. Hayabusa Seiji ceased to be. All that existed was the cold burning wrath within. Strife smiled, and let it into the world.

_**-Dawning joys and present maladies-**_

Yomi began her morning as she always did. She rose from her futon, stretched, clothed herself, and left her room for the kitchen. There she would hum happily yet sleepily to herself, begin to prepare breakfast for her surrogate siblings, look up to see a pair of fangs and blood red eyes three inches from her face-

"Wah!" Yomi flailed her arms and fell to the floor with a shriek.

"Good morning master!" Seras Victoria allowed the rest of her body to move through the wall. The kindred settled herself on the floor in a crouch beside her mistress, a pleased grin on her face. Yomi, one hand pressed to her chest to calm her frenzied breathing, glared at her servant.

"Seras!" She gritted her teeth. "You know I hate it when you do that!"

"My first master taught me that nothing wakes a person up like a good fright." She nodded authoritatively, but added a mischievous wink. Her master groaned and lied back on the floor.

"Well, your first master was a jerk!"

"Hehe..." Seras scratched the back of her head sheepishly, "Well... Yeah, he could be." Yomi could only sigh at that as she picked herself up and resumed her task. "Oh, but that's not why I wanted to talk to you." Seras added almost as an after thought. Her master turned to look over her shoulder back at the kindred and raised an eyebrow.

"You need a reason to scare me out of my wits?" Yomi was still cross with her servant. Seras pouted at her and put her hands on her hips.

"I do everything for a reason, master!" She stated proudly. Her master turned back to her cooking and was silent for several moments.

"Say, Seras? What do you think of Takeshi?" All bravado faded from the kindred's countenance.

"Why do you ask?" Seras' voice was strained, but Yomi was too absorbed in her own thoughts to take notice.

"It's just..." She sighed and stopped what she was doing. "Sometimes I feel like I know him so well, maybe better than I know anyone... Then he shows a totally new side to himself..."

"He has a lot of faces," Seras began cautiously. "Not all of them real..." The girl turned to the kindred sharply, surprise in her eyes.

"What makes you say that?" The servant bit her lip.

"Its... a feeling," She said at last. "He's hiding something." Yomi shook her head.

"No, I mean, I know he doesn't tell me everything... But I think he meant everything he said to me the day we met..."

_-The First Day-_

_The day the Sandaime told Isayama Yomi that she was to become a ward of the Uchiha clan, she found herself despondent. She could not stand being in that empty compound, filled with echoes of the dead and that lonely waif of a boy with such a familiar pain in his eyes. She went out and by the time the sun had begun to set she found herself sitting on a swing. She had been told the building before her was the shinobi academy, where she herself would be attending, but she had yet to set foot within its walls. It was there that he found her, stewing in melancholy._

_"It's getting dark," Yomi jumped at the voice and whirled to see a boy, pale and dark of hair, peering at her from just within the shadow of the tree from which the swing hung. "You should return to the compound."_

_"You... Hayabusa Takeshi?" Yomi began uncertainly. The boy nodded._

_"And you are Isayama Yomi, we will be living beneath the same roof." He came to stand beside her. The pair stood in silence for a moment, watching the academy building. "This is where they train shinobi?"_

_"Yeah..." Her voice was quiet, distracted. She felt quite small, a child in a world of giant emotions, crushing and drowning... And yet the world kept turning, none the wiser. Takeshi studied her, then looked away._

_"You should return to the compound, Isayama-san. The past won't fade and the future won't loom any less while you sit here." Yomi started out of her thoughts and looked at the boy with her full attention._

_"Wha-what did you say?" He turned on her sharply._

_"You're sitting here, hoping time will stop." Takeshi stated, a note of weariness slipped into his voice. "Your past is torn and burned, without it you don't know how to step forward." He turned to her and for a moment he seemed far older than her to Yomi, a distant look in his eye. The girl's eyes fell to the ground._

_"...How?" She said after a time. "How do I go forward?" He did not respond immediately. The pale boy was shaken out of whatever reverie had overtaken him and tilted his head._

_"If you can't come up with the answer yourself... Fake it."_

_"Huh?" Yomi was nonplussed._

_"As I told you, your smiles and false cheer. You're not doing it for yourself, are you?"_

_"Kagura-chan..." The girl whispered to herself._

_"Do it for her if not yourself." He turned from her and began to walk away. "One day, it might just become real." Yomi stared at his retreating form in stunned silence, eyes wide. With a sudden start, she leapt to her feet with balled fists._

_"Wait!" He stopped short and turned half back towards her, eyebrows raised. "I can tell... I can tell by the way you talk about it... You've had the same feeling." She took a steadying breath. "So I'll do what you say, but on one condition."_

_"Oh?" Takeshi turned toward her fully. "And what might that be?"_

_"You have to walk the same path with me." He frowned, she waited a moment for a reaction but received nothing more. "I can tell you've felt the same way I have... but I can also see that your the sort of person that keeps his pain inside." His breath caught and suddenly he was watching her much more intently. She shook her head at him. "I don't want to be like that... and I don't want you to be. So I want us to help each other, okay?" She bit her lip a moment before she added. "Takeshi-kun?" He was silent for a time. Then she heard a low throaty noise and thought for a moment he was growling at her, but soon realized it was a chuckle. An ironic smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as the chuckle died and he approached her. She almost took a step back as he stopped within arms reach._

_"...Very well, I will walk with you and help you find your path to the future. Though I won't promise to smile... Yomi." He touched her shoulder and in a moment he had turned away towards the compound. After she had shaken off her shock, Yomi took off after him, towards the future._

_-Present-_

"I understand," Seras sat beside her master and spoke cautiously. "I understand that he was there for you back then... but master, please don't get too close. He has plans for you, and I don't trust him."

"Plans?" Yomi raised an eyebrow at her servant. "What are you talking-"

"Is breakfast ready?" She was cut off by the entrance of nine year old Sasuke Uchiha, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Ah!" Yomi straightened and smiled brightly at the young Uchiha. "Good morning Sasuke-kun! Did you sleep well?"

"Hn." The sullen boy grunted and sat down at the table. Yomi frowned at him in concern and gave Seras a meaningful look. The servant made an unhappy face but soon faded back out through the wall, leaving her master with the young head of the household.

"Sasuke," She raised her voice slightly. "Do you ever think of spending more time with the rest of us?"

"...Why?" The boy scowled sleepily.

"Well, uh..." Yomi scratched the back of her head sheepishly. "You eat with us, but then you go off to train on your own. It's all you do! It's not healthy to be by yourself so much."

"You'd slow me down." Sasuke was distinctly unimpressed by her argument. The older girl rubbed her temples.

"Sheesh, you're so stubborn!" She sighed. "Fine then! Today, you and I are going train together!"

"I told you-"

"No buts!" She jabbed a finger at the scowling boy. "You think that because I'm not the top of my class like you that you're better than me? I'm going to show you just how strong I am!"

_**-Forest observation-**_

Hyō hardly believed his eyes. He had accompanied Danzou into the heart of the Forest of Death to observe Hayabusa Seiji's training mission. Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary, until he had sensed a malicious chakra surge from the trainee's location. Then he had seen the alligator's head explode in a shower of gore and strange chakra. Seiji moved with unnatural speed and ferocity, ripping into the remaining alligators with kunai and shuriken. With some help from his partner, they quickly retrieved the scroll and were off towards the edge of the forest.

"Hyō, what is your analysis?" Danzou calmly addressed his subordinate, but the Root operative had been in the man's service long enough to recognize the graveness of his tone.

"That chakra... it was like nothing I've ever encountered, but extremely potent." That was stating the obvious. "It seems he was only able to draw on it in a moment of crisis... or-"

"Or he was holding back, like Takeshi." Danzou finished. He frowned. "It seems there is even more to these children than I had believed. What secrets do they hold... and how can they be used to the benefit of the village..."

"Danzou-sama?" Hyō asked tentatively. It was clear the elderly man was deep in thought and the ninja was beginning to realize Hayabusa Seiji would never be a full member of Root. He was too much of an unknown, his allegiance would never be certain and that was something Danzou would not tolerate.

"I want him observed at all times," The leader of Root said after a time. "Especially when not on a mission. We shall see what use he can be to us." Hyō obediently bowed his head.

"Hai, Danzou-sama."

_**-Awkward reflection-**_

Shiro was not the sort of person that enjoyed down time. He was restless by nature and even on a day off like today he found himself itching to return to the training grounds. Unfortunately his young body was less agreeable. He had strained too much yesterday and now had to sit quietly in the compound.

It was driving him up the wall.

The horseman sighed heavily and stood. He wandered into the courtyard and found himself looking up at the great carved faces of the Hokage in the distance. He had not visited the Earth in over a century, long before the establishment of his village and the reign of those men. The stories the shinobi told put their battle prowess up to rival greatest warriors of the First and Second Kingdoms. Personally, War had his doubts. The philosophy they left behind, it did not seem the sort for a warrior to live by. They spoke only of peace, not living by the sword; of protection, not retribution; then there was that caretaker. How could he expect anyone not to crave vengeance for a wrongful death? It was absolutely-

"Shiro-kun?" His thoughts came to a screeching hault. He turned to see Hanabi looking at him, face slightly flushed. Perhaps she had been training? No matter, he tilted his head at her irritably.

"Yes, Hanabi-san?" She chewed on her lip for a time and Shiro felt his irritation rise. If she had something to say, why couldn't she just say it?

"Shiro-kun, um, I was hoping, maybe..."

"Oh, there you are!" Both Shiro and Hanabi jumped in surprise at the new voice. Kagura rushed into the courtyard, positively bubbling with excitement. "Shiro-kun, Hanabi-sama! We're having a picnic." She stated matter of factly.

"...What?" Shiro stared at her.

"I made Kenji-san help me prepare a meal, and we're going to eat it on top of the Hokage monument." Kagura stated proudly with her hands on her hips. War wanted to say no, he almost did, but this was what his brother would call necessary camouflage. He ground his teeth.

"Fine..."

"W-wait, I'm coming too..." Hanabi sputtered and flushed. Shiro wondered if perhaps she should see a healer but events were out of his hands. Before long he found himself following Kagura, who hummed happily the entire time, up the path to the Hokage monument. Naturally, he ended up carrying everything. Kagura spread a blanket and before long all three were seated with the village spread out below them. And Shiro was bored out of his skull.

"Hanabi-sama," Kagura began after swallowing a bite. "Shiro-kun, I was kind of hoping to apologize." Hanabi, who had been picking at her food awkwardly between discrete glances at the white haired boy next to her, blinked at the other girl blankly.

"Apologize? For what?"

"For Yomi," Kagura cast her eyes down in guilt. "I gave her the impression you guys beat me up and she hit you the other day because of it."

"...This is about that?" Shiro furrowed his brow. "You apologized then, days ago."

"I know," She scratched the back if her head and grinned sheepishly. "But you guys are important to me, so I thought I had to make it up to you!"

"I... we're important to you?" Hanabi was genuinely perplexed. She had never thought much about the brown haired girl except as a sparring partner, and not a very good one at that. Now she claimed Hanabi was important to her?

"Hai!" The other girl nodded eagerly. "When I came here I only had Yomi-nēchan and then we were separated, but then I had you two and Maiko-chan!" She smiled warmly. "It was like having a new family." Hanabi was struck dumb, but Shiro had grown quiet. An idea formed in his mind.

"What of your true family, Kagura?" He spoke carefully. "What do you feel about them?" The young girl was quiet for a time. Then she bit her lip and spoke.

"I guess I feel... Angry." Her hands tightened into fists. "I'm angry about what happened to them and... It hurts." She had become very quiet. "But..." Kagura raised her head, a look of resolve on her face. "...The family I have now matters more to me than that anger." She reached out and grabbed one of Shiro and Hanabi's hands in each of her own, smiling. Hanabi was wide eyed.

"Kagura..." She spoke softly, unsure how to feel. Shiro looked as uncertain as she felt, but for very different reasons. Hanabi, however, did not know that, and so she turned to him. "Shiro-kun, what about your family?"

"My family?" Shiro snorted. "Takeshi thinks he can solve all the world's problems by sneaking in the dark like a thief. Seiji thinks little beyond his own pride and Maiko can't keep to herself for her life." The silence that followed was very long and very awkward.

"Umm..." Kagura released their hands and scratched her head. "I think Hanabi-sama was talking about the family you lost, Shiro-kun."

"Ah," War wracked the memory of the child that was. He had been quiet and reserved, with few friends in the clan. It did not tell him what he needed to know. "I suppose... I feel the same." He said uncertainly, hoping he sounded convincing. The conversation moved to lighter topics after that, but Shiro found his gaze drifting to the horizon and his thoughts drifting back to the words spoken to him at the training grounds the past evening.

_**-Revelation of the priestesses-**_

Death had always been one to seek out peace in quiet and stillness. He tended to find it better in graveyards than gardens, but compromises had to be made. What gardens the Uchiha once maintained had long ago begun to grow wild and fallen into disrepair, but they were his destination whenever he needed to contemplate. Today, however, he was not alone. Fury had accompanied him.

And she had brought tea. Whatever strange power had possessed his sister to take up tea brewing was putting him on edge, though it wasn't the only thing. He eyed her suspiciously from the other side of the small table she had set up.

"You don't visit often," He remarked.

"I thought it was time the two of us talked." His sister pushed a cup of tea his way. "About your plans." Death heaved an exasperated sigh.

"This isn't the best time..." Fury grew still and peered at him with searching eyes.

"Oh? Has something happened?" He had a lie on the tip of his tongue, but something about her piercing gaze made him think better of it.

"...Strife ruptured the seal holding his power in check."

"He what?!" Calm facade broken, Fury leaned forward in concern. Death held up a calming hand.

"A brief temporary breach only, I will deal with it."

"...And that is the problem. You seem to forget that there are four of us at times. If not all of us, atleast share them with me. You can't take everything on yourself. Death stared at his sister for a moment, then turned his eyes skyward and sighed heavily.

"Where should I start?"

"...The Priestesses," Fury told him after a moment of thought. "You've told us that they are the new seals of the Apocalypse, but never have you fully explained their role or they came to be."

"Well, I suppose that truly is the beginning." He picked up his tea gingerly and brought it to his lips. "First off, they were not my creation alone, I had help..."

_-Souls of light and dark-_

_When he came to the Tree of Death, the gate to the Well of Souls was thrown open. This did not alarm the eldest of the Horseman. He had expected it, for this meeting was his design. The nephilim leapt down from Despair, the skeletal horse whinnying in apprehension, and trudged through the gate. Everything was as it had been when last he had been here, when he had cast himself within to save his brother and mankind. All except the solitary figure standing at the lip of the well. The being was a whole head taller than the horseman himself, bedecked in gold and silver robes. Jet black hair cascaded from his head and Death could see golden scales creeping up his neck against his otherwise fair skin. When the being turned he fixed the nephilim with a stare of his silver eyes. Any lesser being would have quaked, Death did not._

_"Tianlong," He named the being, "The Celestial Dragon, as they call you."_

_"Death, the destroyer of worlds," A strange smirk came upon the old one's face. "Or so they used to call you when your Grand Abominations razed the realms for Absalom."_

_"Ancient history,"_

_"Indeed!" Tianlong said loudly almost before he had finished. "But we are here to make the future." He beckoned the horseman forward and Death humored him, coming to stand by the lip of the Well. The whispers of all creation's souls rose all around and below they circled in languid luminescence ever on to the next life._

_"You still have not told me your plan." Death watched the dragon out of the corner of his eye. "I'm in no mood for games." The old one shook his head._

_"Horseman, why did you call upon me when the Earth lay in ruin?" He turned his gaze to the depths of the Well._

_"...I needed the old ones to help restore the Earth," Death began warily. "And to reforge the treaties between the First and Second Kingdoms. I needed someone to help gather them and force the Kingdoms to cooperate."_

_"And so you called upon the greater dragons, the most powerful of the old ones." The dragon turned fully towards him. "You trusted me with leading the Celestial Beauracracy and restoring all the Earth. I succeeded in those tasks. At this stage our partnership, surely I have earned some faith by now?"_

_"I will tell you what you need to know." Death was unperturbed. "As to what you called me here for, be out with it now or I shall depart." The Celestial Dragon sighed and drew two objects from his robe._

_"As you wish, horseman. I trust you know what these are?"_

_"Seals..." Death's eyes narrowed. "You've begun work on them."_

_"I recall your request," Tianlong held up the seals for Death's inspection. "Something less exploitable than the previous seals, something... Harder to disrupt." He met the horseman's gaze. "Go on, what do you see?" Ever suspicious, Death studied the two seals. Each was an elaborate tile, emblazoned with countless runes. It was spellwork so old and sophisticated as to be beyond even Death's full understanding. That was not what drew his attention. One seal seemed nearly to glow and when he looked upon it Death felt the forceful power of an angel's light. The other swallowed the light around it and exuded the cloying darkness of a demon. He looked at the old one sharply._

_"What is the meaning of this?"_

_"Light and Dark, Black and White, Creation and Destruction, the inherent duality of Creation..." The dragon raised his other hand and a pair of amorphous luminescent azure specters, human souls, rose from the depths of the Well to hover beside him. "...That is what humans are meant to embody, no?" Abruptly both seals flew from his hand, one to each soul. An inhuman shriek of soul splitting agony ripped through the chamber with such volume that even Death had to turn his head away. Then it was done, and when the nephilim returned his gaze the souls were sinking back into the Well, one shimmering with bright light and the other pulsing with blackness._

_"What have you done?!" He demanded of the old one. His hand hovered over the scythe at his side._

_"I have made a human angel and a human demon." Tianlong explained off-handedly, as if it were of little consequence. "And in a millennium they will be born into humanity. When they face one another, we will know whether of not the Kingdom of Man is ready for the End War."_

_"Explain!" Death rasped with a deadly edge. "What has brought you to this?"_

_"I have visited the Tree of Knowledge," The dragon explained. His eyes did not meet Death's gaze. They were focused on the Well. "It gave me a gift long ago, and I know that these things will be." They stood in tense confrontation, the ancient dragon and the eldest nephilim. Death turned from the Well._

_"You will tell me everything, Tianlong, of the seals, of those souls, and what you saw at the Tree."_

_"As you wish, horseman, as you wish..."_

_-Present-_

"Do you trust him?" Fury asked her brother.

"Tianlong? Not fully, but much of what he told me has proven true." Death finished his tea and placed the cup on the table. "The birth of the priestesses for starters. He also predicted their servants, the Blood Beast and the Spirit Beast: Seras Victoria and Byakuei. One to humans as the fallen are to angels and the other a war beast that once fought beside heaven's host."

"And those essences... The one's he infused with the seals. He could only have gotten those one way..."

"By killing an angel and a demon, and stripping them of their souls? I know." The elder horseman sighed. "I suspect I know your next question."

"...Just what manner of abomination are the priestesses? Halfbreeds?" The female horseman had taken on a disturbed countenance.

"Nothing so simple. Their bodies are entirely human. Their souls, the power that drives their natures, is tainted by angelic or demonic power, not to mention the potent sorcery of the seal itself." Death folded his hands and sat back. Fury shook her head.

"But how can you expect Yomi and Kagura to face one another in battle? They are closer than most true blood sisters and how will that break the seals?"

"Their natures ensure it." Death slipped into a brooding look. "The natures Tianlong gave them. It is subtle now, but in time the changes in their hearts will drive them to conflict. Their responses will affect the seals within them." His expression was filled with detached certainty, but his tone was off. Few beings in all Creation would have caught it. Unfortunately for him, his sister was one of them. She tilted her head at him.

"...We're not just here to train and guard them, are we?"

"No," Death said hollowly. "We're here to ensure their doom..."

_**-Pledged to destruction-**_

Yomi exhaled slowly to steady herself, then whipped her arm out. The four kunai in her grip flew from her grasp, whistled through the air as they homed in on their intended targets, and, with a solid 'thunk', embedded themselves each in one of the four trees in front of her dead center. She smiled satisfactorily and put her hands on her hips, turning to her younger companion. "Your turn," Sasuke gave her a full trademarked Uchiha scowl.

"Hn," He grunted as he snatched up his own kunai. He stared down the targets with an unnerving intensity. Then he let fly, listening for the same sound of sharpened metal biting into wood. He was rewarded with one, two, three solid 'thunks', but one resounding clang as his kunai deflected off Yomi's. He clenched his fist and gritted his teeth.

"My turn," Before he had a chance to turn his head towards her, four kunai thudded into the targets in almost exactly the same spot as the first without touching either her own kunai or Sasuke's. The Uchiha could feel color rising in his face, one part embarrassment and one part fury. "Don't worry, Sasuke, you're only nine." The words were intended as a kindness. The effect was the opposite.

"_He_ mastered the Sharingon by the time he was eight and passed the Chunin exam at ten," He said venomously. Yomi frowned at him. "I need to be stronger!"

"It's your brother then," She was not surprised. "Sasuke... Do you think you're the only one?"

"What?"

"I had my family taken away too," There was no warmth in her voice now, it had grown cold, her gaze distant. "I watched it happen, and one day I'm going to find those responsible." She put her hand on the boy's shoulder. "I'm going to kill them, Sasuke. I don't know who they are or how strong they are, but I'm going to kill them." Sasuke was stunned. He had always known Yomi to be a chipper whimsical sort, this was a new side to her entirely. "Sasuke," She sighed. "The other day you told me that I didn't have enough hate, but that isn't true. I bury it, but its always there, a fevered festering wound. It hurts... and that has made things clear to me." Her grip on his shoulder tightened painfully. "A long time ago, Takeshi told me I had to find my own path forward... And I've found it. It's the same as yours: vengeance, so I'll make a deal with you."

"What sort of deal?"

"A simple one," Some warmth returned to her voice and she smiled at him. "I want you to not be so alone all the time, try and be a part of this new family. In return," The hand on his shoulder slid down to his hand and turned it palm up. With her other hand, she pressed a kunai into it. "I'll train with you and walk this path with you until the day comes when both of us can have our revenge." She tilted her head at him. Her violet eyes stared into his black ones searchingly. "What do you say?"

Sasuke turned his gaze to the ground and said nothing for some time. Then he returned her stare and answered.

"I accept."

_**-Sunset revisited-**_

When the descending sun dyed the sky orange and purple, Shiro was unsurprised to see Hyuuga Kenji walking toward him on the training ground. The white haired boy stood with his oversized cleaver in hand, patiently waiting as the jonin approached. When he drew close, the Hyuuga smiled.

"I see you were expecting me."

"I thought you would come," Shiro picked up his weapon and pointed it at Kenji. "Put up your sword, we will continue where we left off." Kenji raised an eyebrow.

"Are you sure? Shouldn't you still be resting?"

"I heal quickly," With that terse response, War moved forward. The Hyuuga drew his tantō, still sheathed, and met him. Their duel began. Kenji was mostly just defending, but quickly he began to notice a change to Shiro's movements. His flurry of blows was more measured and precise, less reckless, less furious.

"You're thinking," He observed as he side stepped a vertical slice. "Is everything alright?"

"...I have been considering your words." Shiro sighed and ceased his assault, allowing the point of his blade to fall. "And I have spoken with..." He shook his head. "Never mind, I believe I might have judged your ideas prematurely."

"Oh?" Kenji was surprised. "Your cousin didn't think you would change your mind."

"I-" War began but quickly his brow furrowed. "Wait, you spoke to Maiko about this?"

"Well, yes," Kenji coughed awkwardly. "She just told me I was wasting my time," War could not help but scowl.

"Hmph, she interferes in my business enough as it is..." He shook his head. "But that is not what I came to tell you," Kenji tilted his head and looked at Shiro intently.

"There is more than vengeance, I know that," War began slowly. In truth, he had concluded from his discussion with Kagura that he did not fully understand humanity. With this jonin's help, however, perhaps that could be rectified. "I have seen other paths, read of them in the case of the Hokage, and in time perhaps I will understand them... In the mean time," He raised his sword and pointed it at the Hyuuga. "I would have us spar often, do you accept?" Philosophy aside, it would be good to hone this body's strength against a live opponent.

"I am your caretaker," Kenji finally said. "It is my duty to help you however I can. I accept." The hint of a smirk tugged at War's lips.

"Then let us continue," He raised his blade. Kenji raised his sheathed tantō and nodded in acknowledgement. Then the battle began anew.

_**-Night worries-**_

Seiji was smiling. As he lay in his room, he stretched out his hand and concentrated. He could still feel it, that spark of power. It had been so long since he had commanded his full strength, even this tiny piece was exhilarating. He sat up. It was dark outside his window, the clouds hiding even the moonlight. Even so, the horseman saw the scroll sitting on the windowsill instantly. It was unmarked, but he had no doubts as to its origins.

"This had better not be another training mission," He snatched the scroll from the windowsill and lit a candle. His lips twitched into a satisfied smirk as he read its contents. When he was finished, he rerolled the scroll and lit it on fire with the candle. "About time,"

Two minutes later, he was out in the compound and entered one of the deserted buildings. In another five minutes, he emerged with a large scroll tied across his back. Within hardly another minute, he was climbing over the wall of the compound.

From her vantage point on the roof of the main house, Seras watched Takeshi step out of his room in time to see Seiji slip over the wall. He showed no surprise or concern. That was somehow even more unsettling to the kindred. He turned away and returned to his room without taking notice of her. She detached herself from the shadows and found herself grinding her teeth.

"_Eh, don't get so riled, mignonette._" She heard her familiar's voice as much in her head as with her ears. "_I hate to see that pretty face scowling._"

"Follow him, Pip," Seras breathed. "If that so-called 'guardian' won't do anything about this, I will."

* * *

**Author's Note: Well, that took me awhile to finish. I've been working on this chapter bit by bit for months at this point, rest assured that I have not given up on this Fic. I thought it was about time I gave some insight into the Priestesses and what's going on with the seals.a  
**

**To my most recent reviewer as of this posting, NixiePixieStix, I like crossovers. Sometimes I bend things around to make them fit. Working different fictions into a single world is a joy as far as I'm concerned and working on a way to include Seras was pretty fun. Originally I had Alucard in his "Girlycard" form for Seras' role, but he (she?) was a bit harder to work in and too diabolical for my purposes. I hope you continue to enjoy it!**

**As always, review and comment please. Knowing I have people's interest is quite gratifying.**


End file.
